Is Bing a viable competitor to Google - a 1st month review Despite Google's best efforts to steal the limelight away from Microsofts launch of Bing, one has to suggest that Microsoft will not be overly disappointed at the launch of their flagship search engine Bing. Officially launched on the 3rd June, Bings column inches have been fairly impressive both in terms of traditional and industry specific coverage.
But one has to ask - has the new search engine worked? Hitwise have today launched some data on Bing's first month, something which may make happy reading to the Microsoft bosses, particularly in the early days and weeks following launch. Bings daily market share in particular during the early days was significant as many people trialed the search engine, peaking on the 3rd June when it was the 8th most popular site in the UK - and the 3rd most popular search engine accounting for 10.8% of searches in the UK. However since that peak on the 3rd, traffic to Bing has declined quite considerably, as one would presume users return to their search engine of choice - however strangely it should be noted that the average time per visit has increased to over and 8.5 minutes suggesting some level of traction with existing users. The Hitwise report also highlighted the most popular phrases fro the four weeks ending June 6 2009, was facebook (accounting for circa 4% of searches on Bing) , and branded searches accounting for a significant proportion of searches on Bing during the period (not surprising given the fact many people would probably have been trialing 'tried and tested searches' during the early weeks. In terms of non branded searches the following sectors in particular saw reasonable love from Bing during the early weeks (via analysis of the site downstream from Bing):
Interestingly, another positive (according to Hitwise) for Bing was the fact that their other Microsoft properties such as MSN UK (portal) was the most popular 'downstream' site from the Bing site, however in context it also relied heavily on such assets for much of its inbound traffic (45% from MSN UK and 16.6% from Hotmail (Windows Live) - however how much of this is new visits is open to debate - and as such I would suggest how much of a positive is questionable. So following all that positive news does Bing provide a serious threat to Google's search engine dominance. Looking at the initial data, one has to say a big NO, however it would appear it has at least achieved its initial objectives in terms of overtaking Yahoo in terms of UK usage. Whether this trend continues is still open for debate, however my personal thoughts are that Bing could offer a credible second engine to Google for the short to medium term - particularly when secondary offerings such as Cashback make their way across the Atlantic to the UK (and Europe). However that utopia of global dominance is a long way off... CommentOur Daily Search Pic(k): Google ...0 comments 
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Comments (4)
Great article Peter.
I agree with you that Bing could offer a solid second engine to Google, providing a significant alternative and some much needed competition.
I feel that if the Bing brand continues to build a strong relationship with internet users it can win over market share with something as simple as good usability and an aesthetic edge. After all, the majority of web users are not overly search savvy. Read more of my opinion on this here.
http://lab.77agency.com/search-engine-marketing/can-bing-level-the-search-...
Wo 24 jun 2009, 17:33
It is proably adding as a sidenote to the article above, researched published on mediapost today from Efficient frontier.
"The stats released Tuesday suggest that Microsoft is holding gains on paid-click search ads. Justin Merickel, VP of marketing and new product development at Efficient Frontier, says Bing's click share rose 13% versus the week prior to launch, between May 25 and 31. Although Bing continues to lag Google and Yahoo, the numbers represent an incremental 5% lift above the first week.
Although gains look promising, Bing's aggregate click share is less than 5% of the market. "It's too early to tell if Microsoft will continue to gain share or if they will fall back to prior levels," he says. "It will take a few months of data before advertisers can determine if it will change their strategy or budget."
The full post can be found here - http://www.mediapost.com/publications/?fa=Articles.showArticle&art_aid...
Wo 24 jun 2009, 17:55
Nice article. :-)
Do 25 jun 2009, 09:47
A good post - I would have expected the results to decline significantly after the initial launch. I myself used it simply for fun, but haven't really returned to it yet other than for comparing results. I found the increase in the amount of time users were interacting with the search engine very interesting...
Do 25 jun 2009, 13:00