Microsoft's Bing... Decision Engine or Just Another Search Engine?

It's hard to ignore the buzz around Microsoft's latest project - Bing.com. The self-proclaimed "decision engine" is designed to rival Google and Yahoo in the search engine world by offering advanced searching features that allow you to narrow down your search results. This month we go behind the hype and explore what Bing is all about.

With over 60 million people using search engines every day, search continues to be the primary way for Internet users to navigate to key industry categories including Business and Finance, Online Video, Entertainment, and Sports. Microsoft is pushing into this enormous market with its newest project, Bing.com - a search engine that evolved from the old Microsoft Live and MSN search engines. Google currently holds the dominant position in the search engine sphere with over 74% of US searches. With the introduction of Bing, the industry has seen a slight shift in search engine preference with Bing's market share increasing from 3.4% to 6.6% during the month of June, most likely due to the immense amount of advertising surrounding the launch. Advertising Age has gauged the campaign at as much as $100 million. But is this enough to be a viable competitor Google?

Tech analysts were split on whether Microsoft's efforts would work. "The brand change is the most important thing. It may help them build awareness," says Danny Sullivan, editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land. "Some of the new features are nice, but there's nothing there that's a game changer." Its differentiator is its "decision-making" capabilities. Although Bing is not actually a decision engine per se, it provides you with tools to filter your search so you can narrow down your options, therefore helping you make a better decision. Bing is outstanding for finding restaurant reviews, online shopping, and even booking flights. With their Price Predictor feature Bing will tell you whether it is a good time to buy a plane ticket or if they think the price will drop soon and you should wait a few days.

However, if you are not conducting a transaction online but just have a simple question you need answered, Bing falls in line with all the other search engines, albeit a bit flashier. After you complete a search, the results show a traditional description with the ability to hover over the quick view "More Info" bar. By hovering over the results for a moment Bing will bring up a preview of the result site. It saves visitors time by helping them avoid having to go back and forth to different results before finding a suitable answer. Bing offers several other useful features such as:

• Refined Image Search- filter by size, ratio, color, style, and face
• Quick preview of any website- hover over the search results to reveal a quick preview of a particular website
• The explorer pane- a left side navigation menu that offers relevant categories depending on your search
• Advanced video search- filter by length, screen size, resolution, and source (YouTube, Hulu, ESPN, etc.)

So how does this affect you and your website? Should you be concerned about how Bing might affect your website rankings? According to Microsoft, "Ultimately, SEO is still SEO. Bing doesn't change that. Bing's new user interface design simply adds new opportunities for searchers to find the information they want more quickly and easily, and that benefits webmasters who have taken the time to work on the quality of their content and website design." In the end, as long as you have quality content, Meta and alt tags, links and strong titles, your website should have no problem being picked up by Bing. In addition, Microsoft also states that Bing gives more weight to blog posts which significantly boost page rank, so if you have fallen behind, it is time to start updating your blog. If you are still unsure of how your site will rank in Bing, give your SEO company a call and they can do an analysis for you.

It is yet to be seen if Bing's early momentum will be enough to overthrow well-established Google. Bing has made quite a splash with its unmistakable advertising campaigns and consumers seem to be excited about its personalized search results and simple and attractive design. However, Google is so rooted in the market that it will be difficult for Microsoft to steer users away. In the meantime, keep a close watch on your website's performance in Bing to ensure that you are getting the most out of this new search platform. To make your own decisions as to which one is better go to www.bing-vs-google.com and judge for yourself.

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