No doubt you’ve heard the buzz. The ads are everywhere. They’re hard to miss; my favorites are ‘the cure one’ and ‘the bar one’. Then there was the live bing launch, the bing-a-thon, on Hulu featuring several famous individuals including the amazingly funny, Fred Willard. All boast cures for the ailment Search Overload Syndrome (a clever play off SOS).
As attractive as all of this may be, the real questions are as follows: Does bing have any advantage over the well-established Google? Will it steal market share from the dominant Google and Yahoo engines? And what effect will it have on Search Engine Optimization?
Bing is a product of Microsoft. As we saw with the launch of Zune, the company puts a lot of ad dollars behind creative and positioning, which is smart. They’ve definitely come along in the creativity and attractiveness of their computer-based ads – and this coming from a Mac user!
It’s obvious in these ads that bing has its sights set on viably competing with Google and Yahoo with the strong desire to take away a decent chunk of search market share. Bing also has plans to pull in a bigger portion of the online ad market. So far, it seems to be working.
And, as Google has transcended the mere brand to become part of everyday language (it’s is often used as a verb), Microsoft is already attempting to do the same with bing.
While some note that little has changed from Bing’s predecessor, they are, no doubt, making adjustments on a regular basis. Point in case: BrandQuery. Early on, we showed up only on a search of the combination “brandquery” with no spaces. A week later, we appeared (and have since maintained a first page, #2 spot) on a “brand query” search, and last week we magically appeared in the first page, #8 spot on the “query brand” search, a search string which we have not optimized the site for.
Not yet sold, I still find it pretty easy to say I’m impressed. Much is yet to be determined as to how their algorithm works from an SEO standpoint as I have not yet begun testing through BrandQuery projects or personal projects to see how keywords in headlines, page titles, navigation, and the associated content affect search placement, but I will say that I’m excited to begin!
Still, in select searches, items which one would think would show up in a simple query prior to any optimization, do not appear on the first page. Additionally, select searches are yielding a few bizarre results. As time passes, it will be interesting to see how bing reads various changes to a website (from page titles, to headlines and image tags, and even simple alterations in the body copy), if external links to a site increase a site’s rank, as well as how a strong presence elsewhere on the web (i.e. social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn) affect rank placement.
Ultimately, will bing truly be an early cure for Search Overload Syndrome? Each day brings me closer to the seemingly imminent answer of yes.