Google vs. Bing Deathmatch

I’m a big google fan. But I’m open minded, so let’s check out the competition, bing. Let’s see how they score on a popular, and a not so popular website…Brad Pitt

He’s a famous guy, I’m sure both search engines will give me some great results. Let’s take a look at Bing first.

My eye immediately falls to the top link, the news. Is this the best, most accurate, most interesting news about Brad right now? I don’t know, but his Mrs seems to mainly feature in the picture. How about the second line… lots of pictures, some almost pornographic. Not so sure. Then the third link, and we’re into the meat, the raw facts, Wikipedia. The videos are at the bottom of the screen, and there are four of them. I like the way they play little thumbnail videos when you hover over. Very media heavy, and that’s maybe what you want if you’re the kind of person who searches for Brad Pitt.

Score: 4/5

How does Google fare?

Well, first off, I like the side bar on the left; Google haven’t already decided that I’m looking for video or images, I have to specify what I’m looking for.  Interesting that the first news story is from four hours ago, but bing’s is from 11 days ago. Google’s selections are tabloid, but new, compared to the older, and more sober bing articles.  Following the news are the same three links in a different order, then finally the pictures. Was I after pictures? I don’t know, but when I get there, Google’s selection is much better – head shots of Brad looking great. But where are the videos? He’s a film star, but Google has no video links in sight. Strange, given that Microsoft choose four from Google’s YouTube property. Asthetically, I prefer Google’s sparser, less busy presentation; bing is more like a magazine.

Score: 4/5

The Other Way Works

There is a website which I put together for my wife’s theatre company, theotherwayworks.co.uk. One day in Febuary 2007 Google decided that it didn’t like it any more and it vanished without trace from the search. Apparently it doesn’t even help being linked to from two national daily newspapers. I’ve tried in vain to get it re-listed, but I’ve had to give up. Oh well. Still, perhaps I can still find some good links about this theatre company from the competing search engines. What have you got Google?

Well, all of the links are relevant, and hey look there at the sixth link! It comes from the company website. Maybe there is hope after all. That’s the first time I’ve noticed it there for years.

Score: 2/5

And bing?

Well, none of the links are relevant to the company.

Score: 0/5

So Google comes in ahead. They both did well on a popular search and bing failed miserably on a less popular search. I guess it makes sense for the bing engineers to focus on the popular sites, but I won’t be changing my first port of call.