And then there were 2!

Now that Yahoo and Microsoft have come to an agreement to make Bing the provider of search services on Yahoo, you might be wondering how this will impact your search marketing program.

This deal combines the number two and number three players in search to create a contender with about 30% of the search market. This is still a distant second from Google’s 65% market share. Still, Bing may be worth a try and a test of your pay per click search budget - especially with Bing’s aggressive new advertising program.

The CatalystGroup http://www.catalystnyc.com/cofactors/wp-content/uploads/2009/06/catalyst-eye-tracking-bing-vs-google-may-2009.pdf
recently did a good comparison that included both user experience and pay per click ad visibility. Their study showed that Bing attracted 150% more user viewing time to the ad spaces at the top of the search result compared to Google. According to the report: “Users attention was much more concentrated just below the ad space on the camera search result page on Bing compared to Google. We believe this was due to the interest in the refinement options that only Bing offered in this area. In turn we strongly suspect that this was a significant factor in users spending about 150% more time looking at this ad space on Bing.”

Another study by Chitika (http://chitika.com/blog/2009/07/24/chitika-analysis-bing-traffic-vs-google-and-yahoo/) suggests people who land on sites from organic sear ch results via bing are 55% more likely to click on an ad, compared with arriving on the site from Google.

I did a quick search on both sites using the term “Leather sofa” On Google this search retuned 910,000 results. On Bing it returned 10,400,000 results. The success of search is not the volume of responses but whether the search engine returns the right type of information you are seeking. Bing’s related links highlighted among others Natuzzi, Ashley and Macys. It enabled me to drill deeper into each of these categories to find the information I wanted faster.

Numerous head-to-head comparisons exist between the two and generally speaking most really enjoy the layout and filtering capabilities of Bing but these enhancements may not enough to convert Google users who are already comfortable with the Google’s format and using its applications. Do your own comparison by going to www.bing-vs-google.com
Most people are very loyal to a search browser so it is not likely you will see a fast migration to Bing and since the Microsoft/Yahoo agreement will take a while to implement, that leaves plenty of time for Google to enhance its features.

I’m a Google fan who occasionally dabbles with Ask.com. Now I’ll be trying out Bing. What is your preferred search engine for both business and personal use?