The war of search engines: 'Bing vs. Google'

The war of search engines is spicing up with Microsoft pitching new strategies to capture the search market. But will 'Bing' be able to capture the search market as the traditional 'Google search tool'. The nomenclature Google has become the synonym for the very word search. This is the in-depth effect that Google has in our day to day life.

However, it seems Microsoft has done its homework with defined clarity to hurt the field of Google. The recent strategy of Microsoft was including Facebook in it, for example when someone searches for a restaurant or movie on Bing, he can see what his friends have liked. People now can easily depend on their friends to get online guidance. Microsoft has capitalized well on the booming social networking industry by teaming up Facebook. This partnership is considered as a big blow and threat against Google.

Google has billions of people typing in searches in a particular day which have attracted huge advertisers but Microsoft Bing search site has steadily picked up traffic accounting for more than 14 percent of searches in the American market, stated comScore, a global leader in business analytics. Google has a two-thirds share of the market in the United States although it claims an even higher share in many foreign markets. However Yahoo and many smaller search players have lost out in this big battle.

The costs for Microsoft have been mounting. In the financial year ended June, the online services division, mainly the search business lost $2.56 billion. The unit's revenue rose 15 percent, to $2.53 billion, but the losses still exceeded the revenue.

Let's go through a comparison for features between the two.

1. Tools

Bing comes packed with search tools such as an Explorer Pane for refining searches, Quick Previews for sneaking a peek at a site before visiting it, and Sentiment Extraction for making sense of product reviews. Google, on the other hand has some cool tools such as Street Views.

2. Home page

Bing's front page is conspicuously loud due to the amazing photography. It's front door includes plenty of shortcuts to other Microsoft-owned Web destinations such as MSN, Wind

ows Live, and Bing Travel. But Google portrays an elegant simplicity of a white background with blue links to key Google features in the upper left corner.

 
3. Search Results:

Search results for Bing have main components like a left-hand navigation panel of Quick Tabs that allow you to focus your search fast; and a center row of Categorized Search res

ults, which simply allow group results in logical categories. Search results also include instant answers, deep links, and multimedia. Google search results are delivered no-frills-style with blue links descending from most to least relevant. Both of these search engines deliver results that may include instant answers, deep links, and multimedia.

4. Pop Search:

When it comes to searching for a popular recording artist Bing search doesn't stop at delivering the expected links to fan pages; it also displays videos that play straight from th

e search results. It delivers videos that you can preview simply by hovering your cursor over them. Google offers videos by the artist as well, but they aren't as prominently displayed as on Bing.

5. Edge over Google:

With the inclusion of Farecast technology in Bing Travel, Microsoft has the edge over Google and other search engines in locating the best and cheapest flights. The Farecast c

harts the ups and downs of airfares for a particular itinerary in recent months and predicts what they are likely to be in the near future. It also lets Bing users make use of this technology to look out for hotel reservations.

6. Image search:

Google "sort by subject" feature in Google images is a pretty nifty way to find what you want, especially when you don't know exactly what you're looking for. Google uses

the example of looking for a certain kind of a car when you don't know the name of the brand. Search for "car" and click on "sort by subject" and Google returns rows of car images sorted by brands. Google's new sorted image results are more useful than anything the snappier-looking Microsoft search currently offers. This makes Google image search more interesting than Bing.