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Bing Search Overtakes Yahoo
SharkLaser writes "Microsoft's Bing search engine has overtaken Yahoo for the first time. While both Bing, Yahoo and a bunch of meta-search engines like the privacy-oriented DuckDuckGo use Bing's back-end, it clearly shows Yahoo's declining market share. comScore has also released its search data for 2011 — overall, Bing gained 3.1% of market share while Yahoo lost 1.5% and Google lost 0.7%. Yahoo's new CEO Scott Thompson has lots of work to do."
Here's how I have contributed:
I used to employ Google for all kinds of web searches, but over the last few month's, I realized (by accident), that Bing's video search returns were better presented (but not necessarily more relevant) than Google's.
Particularly, I have come to love Bing's playing of the videos when the mouse is hovered over them. Google has nothing close! Google should watch out.
That's a great feature in Bing, actually. Especially if looking for more adult material. Another thing is that Google has really crapped their design lately. It relies heavily on javascript and they've gone and hidden the cached link in the side panel that opens when you hover it. It's slow and clumsy. Same thing happened to their image search. It's sad because Google always took pride in providing clear, useful interface, but not anymore. I guess they get more ad clicks by frustrating users who use the normal search.
So use http://search.yahoo.com/
MS is making inroads through partnerships, interesting presentation of search results(like video searches), and putting using Bing as the default in their OS (just like they did with IE). However, I still get better results with Google over Bing even when looking for stuff on microsoft.com. It really becomes frustrating when you are on a MS site and can't find something (that you know exists) because the site's search tool is powered by Bing. Yes, Google needs competition but Bing isn't it. Sad for MS but true.
Keep the Classic Slashdot.
I think the only thing keeping Yahoo in the Search market are the various software packages that try to push the Yahoo Toolbar during install, and ISPs that use it as the their default Homepage during setup.
I like the image search, too. I started using Bing when Google+ came out and every website wanted to have me report to Google through a javascript tied to google.com, but blocking google.com meant search became really lame, so I started using Bing and sandboxed Google into Chrome. I find Bing's results to be better on obscure searches where Gooogle hasn't had someone pick out the best result already, but for most searches Bing is not quite there, but it is getting there. On a side note, I had never used Chrome before, so in 2011 I contributed to the increase in users using Bing and Chrome, however, Firefox is still my regular browser and I use Google and Bing about equally.
I once took an excursion to Reddit, and later HN. Unlimited up/down voting sucks when dealing with a hive-mind.
Yeah, that's not paranoid at all. There's a much higher change that users would change to Google instead of Bing, and since Microsoft gets paid for the Yahoo deal, why would they deliberately shoot themselves in to leg?
I think the only thing keeping Yahoo in the Search market are the various software packages that try to push the Yahoo Toolbar during install, and ISPs that use it as the their default Homepage during setup.
Google is changing that though, as they're been heavily pushing Chrome with software installs, OEM's and ISPs. So instead of Yahoo toolbar or Bonzi Buddy, you now get Chrome when you install some software. How delightful.
Sales for the Zune have overtaken sales for the Sony Walkman.
Cross post for a pic from reddit.com
There's always a reason why people still prefer using Google. The only reason why I can see people using Bing or Yahoo is because that's the default engine on their web browser or something like that.
Some apps are WYSIWYG. Some others are WYSIWTF.
I smell a marketing campaign targeted against Google. Yahoo is powered by Bing. DuckduckGoo also powered by Bing.
I still prefer Google's track record on privacy over MS's or FB's. Not that I'm not worried about privacy, it is getting very difficult to escape the all seeing eyes...
Just tried yahoo search for the first time... the results page looks quite similar to google, surprised me.
I was using Yahoo! for years. Up until they started pushing pop up/pop under ads. At that point they were Google powered, and I asked myself - "if I'm just getting Google results, why not use Google?"
If their search engine is Bing - why not just use Bing?
The new CEO needs to figure out the answer to that question.
>That thing still has a search engine?
lol... after 14 years of google i also struggle to find yahoo's search bar between all those ads...
the yahoo frontpage is an asshole..
No that it goatse you are thinking of.
So, how much of this swing away from Google is due to the seriously annoying things they have done recently including, but not limited to, Google Instant (seriously annoying), Google Preview (irritating and annoying) and screwing over the gmail interface.
As for the third, in this day and age there is no excuse.
As for the first two... I use other search engines in places where I can't disable google instant and google preview. I find both of them so annoying that I waste more time disabling them than actually using the search engine. The interface gets in the way of the function. Yes, there are ways to ignore and bypass these irritations.. but why I am wasting effect on doing so?
You have a sick, twisted mind. Please subscribe me to your newsletter.
I wondered that too. And the funny thing is, if it's the case, it might work -- I didn't know that DuckDuckGo was powered by Bing and, now that I do, it changes the way I feel about them. All of a sudden they aren't the champions of freedom that I thought them to be.
I just went over to their site and searched around. No mention anywhere that they're Bing powered. They must know that if they do have ties to Bing and they try to hide it, it'll hurt their image.
I wonder if it is FUD. There's just one article I found about DuckDuckGo being Bing powered (because of the similar low placement of Libre-Office when you search for Open Source Office on DDG and Bing), but it doesn't have anything concrete, just 'what ifs' and 'maybes'. Does anybody have a more official announcement on the matter? Do we know if DDG get money from Bing for using their results?
I wondered that too. And the funny thing is, if it's the case, it might work -- I didn't know that DuckDuckGo was powered by Bing and, now that I do, it changes the way I feel about them.
Wow, so just because you only now realized that they use MS technology their search engine is suddenly worse? Talk about hating just for the purpose of hating.
And you get mention of Bing when you search something and scroll down. There's this:
results by Bing
built with Yahoo
What does this mean?
FB and google both have business models built around extensive tracking and profiling of users. It is their source of income, their purpose as companies. Google's whole search business is just a way to gather user data, as is facebook's social networking. You can expect them to invade your privacy - if they don't, they aren't doing their jobs right.
I don't think the distaste is for the technology, although there may be technical reasons. The distaste is for Microsoft's commercial practices.
:. Ultimate Control Dedicated/VM Servers
That's a high five moment for Ballmer right up there with the Zune out-selling one or two unbranded, generic mp3 players.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Here's the info you're looking for.
They have their own webcrawler, but it's young and doesn't have much data yet, so general search results come mostly from Bing/Yahoo, judging by few queries.
Let's wait and see if it'll grow out of conveniency privacy/aggregation wrapper to become a real competing search engine.
If their search engine is Bing - why not just use Bing?
The new CEO needs to figure out the answer to that question.
More than likely, his answer will be the same as his predecessor: "people don't go to Yahoo for search results: they go for the /experience/."
Or some equally inane marketing bullshit. Anyway, it's an interesting idea- I'll give them that. Google already has the market pretty well cornered on a search page that only does search, so Yahoo is trying to capture the "people who want a search page so cluttered with info you can barely locate the search bar" demographic. All joking aside, it is somewhat nice to get the news-at-a-glance that yahoo offers at those times I need to check my junkmail on mail.yahoo.
I smell a marketing campaign targeted against Google. Yahoo is powered by Bing.
And the changes Nov-Dec 2011 are:
* +0.5 Google
* +0.1 Bing
* -0.6 Yahoo
In other words, 0.5% of the global search volume moved from Bing-powered to Google-powered in a single month.
The creatures outside looked from Alt-Right to Antifa; but already it was impossible to say which was which.
I can google that. Nevermind! :P
And even more importantly those videos come directly from Bing so they bypass webfilters.
No one chooses Bing (ok some do but not many). People use Bing because their WindowsUpdate updated their browser from IEx to IEy and it changed the default search engine to Bing and the user never even noticed. I say this because, as an IT professional, every single user's PC I have ever seen with Bing as the default search engine, the user still thinks they're using Google. They simply don't pay attention to anything that's going on in front of their own eyes.
Bing is not gaining market share by being good - it's gaining it because MS is using their OS monopoly to "trick" users into using Bing. I say this as someone who generally likes Microsoft, too. When it comes to someone changing my browsers settings - any of them - without asking me, I get really pissed off.
Not exactly.
That's a great feature in Bing, actually. Especially if looking for more adult material.
so Bing is the porn search engine of choice?
gives "let me Bing that for you" a whole different meaning.
Anyone who bases a search engines capabilities on contrast of whiteness (?) is either trying to make a joke, or is indeed a fanboy.
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After long ago abandoning Alta Vista for Google, I've recently found myself compelled to return, for one simple reason; Google try too hard to tell me what I'm looking for.
What I mean is this, Google are not content to let me tell them what I want to find. Their search algorithms now completely discount my use of quotation marks to group words, or to try to indicate that I really want whatever unlikely word I enter. Many of the old tricks for hinting to the search engine that you mean what you say are now ignored entirely. On Alta Vista, powered by Yahoo! (and therefore by Bing, I guess) those tricks still work.
When I perform technical term searches, which is much of what I do, I don't need the search engine second guessing my spelling. If Google would let me override their "corrections" I would continue to use them.
All opinions expressed are mine, if you want them it'll cost you.
Sorry, but no. Microsoft is still as of today essentially mugging people (both device makers and by extension their buyers) by charging for the FAT patents.
The damn patent consists essentially on converting "longfilename.txt" to "LONGFI~1.TXT" - behold the innovation! - and for that they are able to extort any organization that wants to work with their monopolist OS (which was in large part gained through shady deals with OEMs).
Dilbert RSS feed
Or some equally inane marketing bullshit
I interviewed a half dozen Yahoo employees while I worked for "another" search engine company. I asked them why they were leaving. Four of them said (basically) that it was because Yahoo doesn't care about engineers or ideas, just eyeballs and money. If your project doesn't show good numbers, no matter how much better the user experience might be if it was adopted, your project will languish or be canceled. One guy mentioned that his group's hardware was cast-off servers from around the dotcom era, and they couldn't get new hardware because they were infrastructure or something. The marketing types handled the budget.
Contrast this with that other search engine company, which once gave an engineer a 5-day paid Hawaii vacation because he figured out how to make searches a tenth of a second faster.
Anyway, I don't know if what the interviewees said was true, but it made sense. They wanted to work at a place that was driven by ideas and technology, not marketing.
-B
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
so Bing is the porn search engine of choice?
- don't be so dismissive of the killer application for the entire Internet.
You can't handle the truth.