Bing and Google: Users Are Willing to Try New Things
According to the latest data from Compete, Bing, Microsoft's new search engine, is still going strong, though even a month after its launch, the majority of Bing's users still switches back and forth between Google and Bing. About 66% of Bing's users also use Google search, and this number has held steady over the last few weeks. 30% of Bing's users also use Yahoo Search, and about 4% use AOL Search. The most interesting aspect of this report, however, is that Google's users seem to be far more interested in trying out a new search engine than users of other services.
Users are Willing to Experiment, But Don't Switch Completely
Maybe this is not a bad thing. Bing clearly excels in some area (travel, health, and shopping, for example) and can easily compete head-to-head with Google when it comes to standard web searches. At the same time, Google's virtual monopoly position in the search arena (even if it's a natural one) wasn't likely to go unchallenged, and wasn't likely to pan out in a positive way for consumers. Now, if we trust these results from Compete's analysis, more users are using a larger variety of search engines instead of just relying solely on Google, which can only be a good thing.
As Rich Devine from ZAAZ points out in the Compete post, some of the early curiosity around Bing was surely driven by Microsoft's marketing campaign around the service. The data, however, also shows that quite a few users are willing to look at alternatives to their favorite search engines.
Not a Typical Week for Search
We have to note, though, that the last week of June was not a typical week for search engines, as the death's of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett drove more users to search engines, and this brought Bing's audience to over 27 million, up from 21 million in the week right after its launch.
As of now, Google's users aren't running away from the service and making Bing their exclusive search engine, and neither are Bing's users completely loyal to their service. In terms of its overall audience, Bing is also still small compared to Google, but this data shows that users might be more willing to explore alternatives than we used to think.
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I think it's going to be a year (more?) before we have evidence of people switching to Bing and not going back that we can verify.
I'm interested to see if this does happen, but at an 80% audience penetration and verb status for Google, I don't think it's likely.
Honestly? I'm more excited about Friendfeed Search.
For a very long time, I've used other search engines first, and used GoOgle as a last resort. But I HAVE fallen back upon GoOgle many times. In all the browsers I use, I make a point of setting up the search bar to have the option of at least 8 search engines for various purposes.
Bing on fire!!! -- check this out - http://www.moneyma.com/tech-news/bing-on-fire/ , bing servers went down for 2 days
Okay I'm guilty of switching back and forth. I think its natural and brother told me there were some stats regarding change on http://picktorrent.com that says that change causes anxiety and I know for me, I'm go used to googling, when I use Bing I'm afraid I may miss something...lol.
it's "Farrah" not "Sarrah" Fawcett...
Thanks admin
No self-reliant, intelligent person would willing allow their choices to be made for them, per Bing's prime time TV commercial tag line: "its a decision engine"
I had always thought only Google gives the best result. But now i use Bing lot more than Google.
Use Bing more and more because my searches seem to be more consistent. I find I start at Google, then remember and switch to bing.
I think Microsoft and the folks at Bing would tell you this is exactly what they planned and hoped would happen. Bing didn't set out to supplant Google on day-1 they are taking a much smarter, long term approach. First cherry pick, what can you do better than the other guy, in a niche way. I think they nailed that.
I don't see why people wouldn't try bing. They're inundating all the TV networks to get the word out.
We'll see over time how they do.
I switched my default search to use Bing and I have no complaints really. Oddly enough, Google is still my homepage since thats where all my rss feeds are. If Bing would implement a clean rss dashboard I would switch completely.
Not sold yet. I still see the EXACT same results now on Bing as i did on their old search. I use Yahoo and Google regularly and they seem to work best. I will keep trying BING until it wears me out.
My tracker doesn't show visits from Bing searches at all, I've had just one or two Visitors coming from Bing. I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that I'm in India, where Google is still hugely popular?
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It's a good news.
Bing is better than live after all.
Thanks for great article..
I am using bing browser...Really it is very nice and useful...
Thanks for great article...nice information
Bing is good.
thanx for sharing. forever google:)
After using Google for eight years or so it is odd to use Bing, not that Bing is worse than Google. It just may not seem right to a lot of people to not use Google. It is just like 'I've had a BlackBerry device since 2002 why would I switch to an iPhone now?' arguments...
It's hard to evaluate Bing usage and compare it to Google etc. because it's the default engine in Windows, and is also used as a site-specific search engine at microsoft.com and other MS sites. You're going to end up using Bing at some point in the process of managing a computer or computers running Windows, even if for non-Windows stuff you use another search engine. I also wonder how many users have different mindsets (mental models even) depending on the nature of their search task. For some kinds of searches, they may conciously go to google.com or yahoo.com; for others (perhaps if they know part of a site's domain name or are unsure of it) they may just open IE and type a word in the URL box and click enter, ending up at Bing not intentionally but because that's where IE takes them for non-URLs.
I advertise on Google and am trying Bing. Bing is having problems with regional and local placements though. My ad doesn't show at most peoples homes I know that are in our Philadelphia PA area. I reported the problem to Microsoft AdCenter support weeks ago but they have not even admitted the problem yet.
Traffic has been EXTREMELY LIGHT compared to Google. I think mostly because my ad isn't showing as it is setup to.
It strikes me that Bing's popularity might just be due to MS changing IE's default 'URL not found' search to point to Bing rather than Live or MSN. Even my old testing copy of IE6 is doing that - which is still a good chunk of Internet users.
I used to use google and ask.com, now I go on bing.com, it is so much better than al, the rest. Google has so many results that have nothing to do with my search, bing.com only gives me what I search for.
thanx for sharing. forever google:)