I’ve had a couple of days to use Windows Live Sear… er… Bing and all told, I don’t think it’s that bad. But Google still wins for me.
One main thing I like about Google is that it isn’t mashing up all results for something on one page in an inelegant way. If I search for a broad term like “Chicago” on both engines for instance, I get very different treatments. Bing gives me 5 web search results for the actual term I searched for, and then tries to guess what I’ll search for next – with additional results. “Chicago tourism”, “Chicago hotels”, “Chicago biography” (eh?), images, and videos.
On Google I get a map up top, news results for Chicago, and a mess of web results before I get video and related search options. To be honest though, the Bing treatment is way more intrusive. I still very much prefer drilling down myself versus having an engine attempt to drill down for me.
I never use Google’s homepage so Bing’s pretty pictures are a non-issue for me. I do like Bing’s wee preview of a page’s contents from within the search results page… that’s kind of handy. I can imagine the marketing angles of this.
Will I switch? No. Bing is fine; I’m just not clear on who it’s for.
Posted in Technology