Google is more and more becoming Yahoo. They want to be a portal only that yahoo has all the portal stuff cleanly arranged on its homepage and Google is trying to stuff everything into its SERPS. Also notice how you can enter a keyword and then search for images only, news only, shopping site only on the right. But there is no: websites only.

And the quality of results on Google is rapidly declining.

Search for me is: I enter keywords and get relevant websites that match the keywords.

Search on Google is: Google tries to find out who you are and where you are and where you have been in the past then guesses where you want to go, completly ignoring the keywords you put into the searchbox. I sometimes wonder why they even bother to display a search box in the first place when the algorithm ignores 50% or more of the words I put in there.

What is missing in your list is:
- It's much easier to switch to results in different languages on Bing.

Yeah, been with Bing for quite a while myself... I actually find it 'not fun' to visit Google to check rankings any more. Used to like G, but they went and fixed it when it wasn't broken and Man did they fix it! lol

Bing has been my default since last year. I use them for about 80% of all my searches maybe even 90%. I basically use Google to check rankings. So far Bing overall is a very good competitor to the big G.

My main reason for switching is that the big G knows too much about me and my habits on the 'net. I'm trying to spread my search logs around LOL

Agree about Bing's weak point being long-tail results. If I'm trying to track down a weird software error, the answer is likely in a forum post. And, that answer is likely to be buried if the thread dates back a couple of years. Google still does a lot better job of spidering and indexing big forums.

Having said that, I think Bing IS pushing a little deeper than it has in the past.

I think I'll try switching my toolbar to bing and see how it goes for me.

I switched to Bing about 2 weeks ago. All my default searches on all my browsers.

I was stunned - better top ten results, cleaner, more readable and usable and the awful auto fill is gone for good along with the new Google places fiasco - I do a lot with local search and local clients and just got fed up with the direction google is going

If more people would switch we might get more competition and a lot better search choices.

Look forward to Facebook coming up with one of their own someday or even a new entry with something completely clean and original.

All of the above may be true but the bottom line is that there is no real evidence that Joe Public is switching to Bing. Is there?

i'm listening to you all, but not seeing quality...
i go to bing and search for "red hallway rugs"...

+no ppc ads are focused on red

+i see this at the top of the page, "We're including results for red hall rugs. Do you want results only for red hallway rugs?"

+#1 seo result is ebay

+3 more of the 10 organic listings are also ebay pages, 2 of these say in the serp that their auction has ended

+#2 is a uk rug store, even though my location says i'm in the USA

+#10 and #7 are also uk online rug stores

i can find plenty of faults with G, but i can't see using Bing as a serious option for me.

> i go to bing and search for "red hallway rugs"...

>no ppc ads are returning anything with "Red" in them.

On Google - several are generic (irrelevant) discounters like potterybarn, overstock, and macys.

Bing gives you: 2 ads that are good rug companies.

The shopping ads are pretty targeted: "Handmade Wool Sari Red/ Black".

>#1 result is ebay

Sure - and it it perfectly targeted. I'd say that is good results. Google's ebay result is page 4. hmmm because relations are so bad between Google and Ebay?

Google's #1 result is Etsy? Really, seriously Etsy? Come-on - ebay is a 10fold better result than Etsy.

> #2 is a uk rug store, even though my location says i'm in the USA

Agreed, but I have to get down to #7 to see that uk result.

---

Then look at Googles Results:

Above-the-fold:
3 premium AdWords ads (1 of wich with a +)
First organic result is that Etsy ad. Ya, that's quality. lol
2nd, is Ezinearticles (aka an eHow clone)

Next is the Google Shopping spam.
---------------- end of fold on 1024x768 full screen

3: www.floorsandsurfaces.com a generic result, but I can live with it. (but ck #10 in that search for a duplicate)
4: TheFind (seo optimized category spam). Seriously? Why is this stuff in in the top 1000 results? Not 1 but 2 with indents and subheadings to boot.
5: deanstairtreads - Finally a quality result.
6 hubpages.com - with all due respect to the fine folks at hubpages, a content farm doorway page has no purpose in this result whatsoever.
7: www.overstock.com 'nuff said.
8: www.wikio.co.uk (remember we complained about the UK result on bing? well here you go)
9: www.twenga.co.uk (gee, yet more UK sites...hmmm, maybe Bing was right after all)
10: www.atgstores.com compare this one with #3! Is it? Is it really duplicate content spam? Hi Mikey - he likes it!

Don't look now Ethel, but Bing just beat Google on another Serp.

the find has tons of rugs, huge database by size and color.

"several are generic (irrelevant) discounters like potterybarn, overstock, and macys macys."
irrelevant? all sell rugs - lots of them.

you make some good points (i said finding fault is easy at G), but you're overdoing it don't you think? to me, g's results are clearly superior to bing (while both need obvious improvements).

wondering if you saw this:
[webpronews.com...]

talks about affiliates and how bing pays to get people to their engine?
your choice is employing tactics that muck up our ecosystem.

so add immoral (read their lame replies in the report) and poor policing to my earlier assessment.

they've got a long way to go - and it begins by working on not purposely screwing their users.

on second thought...
we both seem biased to me.
maybe we should do a Pick Fu (or equivalent) test.

+#2 is a uk rug store, even though my location says i'm in the USA

+#10 and #7 are also uk online rug stores

Exactly! Isn't that great! That's what I hate most at Google - the localized results. Even if I type in search terms in foreign languages I get local results. Google’s mission once was to organize the world‘s information and make it universally accessible. Can you imagine what it means if you live in a small country like Belgium or Luxemburg or even in a country like France or Germany and only get localized results all the time? That isn't the worlds knowledge, that Google once promised. If I want to get at the worlds knowledge in Google I have to jump through half a dozen hoops and perform a headstand. Bing also provides localized results to some extent but at least I can switch with one mouseclick - on every page.

I switched to Bing early last year and thought I was one of the few.
Glad I'm in such good company.
I stopped the comparison between the 2 as Bing gives me what I'm looking for 90% of the time and I cringe when I have to switch back to Google for the 10% of searches that weren't fulfilled by Bing.

Interesting thread, telling to merchants who sell products online- make sure you're listed on Bing Shopping.

Well a Position 9 on Google I am seeing this thread for the mentioned Rug term - time to diversity into the rug business perhaps?

The serps I hate are the ones I can guess at before I type in the query, Amazon in the top 3 places for a term - why.

Ezinearticles - as a webmaster I publish there for a backlink but would never read the rubbish they have.

Yes local search is way overdone at the moment.

I may try Bing for a while - nothing to lose.

Even if I can't find what I want - I will stick with Bing first to avoid the interface mess of Google...
Bing- stay the course. You got me to change for 2 years, you are doing something right.

Is it Bing that is doing something right - or is it Google that provides the interface mess?

I still use Google. Yes, I discovered it recently while using the search front-runner Altavista...

To avoid the Google interface, my Firefox uses the Greasemonkey add on.
[addons.mozilla.org...]

Hah! Fascinating findings. I don't want to get myself involved with the subjectiveness of it all, people picking sides between Bing and Google.

I have been using both bing and google for the past year or so with no real rhymme or reason to which one I use at anyone time. My main searches are programming and html related queries and both engines seem to give me the results I need.

Today I hit a problem with Bing I had not encountered before.

A search for "Santandore" on Bing gives a page of results related to "Santander". Now if I was searching for Santander and couldn't spell this would be great, but I wasn't and I had spelt the word correctly.

After trawling through 10 pages with no results relevant to Santandore I flipped over to Google and repeated the search. Google like bing assumed I was searching for Santander but at least gave me the option to change the search to Santandore. Once I did this I found exactly what I was looking for.

Am I being dumb or is there no way to force Bing to search for what you really want rather than what they think you want ?

That is a major negative if it is the case.

The following 5 messages were cut out to new thread by brett_tabke. New thread at: msn_microsoft_search/4272886.htm [webmasterworld.com]
7:36 am on Feb 26, 2011 (cst -6)

i switched to bing when goog started treating my adwords account like the red headed step child.