Theresa Conlon - Google Chrome and Microsoft Bing

For this assignment, I choose to compare the Google search engine with Microsoft's Bing search engine. I am most familiar with the Google search engine as I use it on a daily basis, but I was not very familiar with the Bing search engine. Google is clearly the dominant search engine on the Internet, but Microsoft appears to be making great efforts to try to gain some of Google' s market share.

Overall, I would say that the general search tips for Google and Bing were quite similar. I read the information on Bing's Search Effectively and Search Tips and Techniques pages and Google's All Tips & Tricks page. Both sites suggested using terms that you would expect to find on the Web sites that you are seeking. Both search engines recognize quotation marks when searching for exact phrases. Also, both search engines are not case sensitive. Google says to use "web friendly words," and Bing says to "try words that have a different but similar meaning," so both sites are emphasizing the fact that there needs to be a certain level of precision when choosing the words and phrases for a search. Both sites seem to have fairly similar conventions regarding common words such as "the" or "and." These words are ignored unless the user feels they are essential to the search and puts them in quotations. Both sites give users the ability to search for information within a certain category such as news, images, or videos, etc. I even tried the "Bing It On Challenge," a gimmick created by Microsoft in order to get people to switch from using Google to using Bing. While the search results for both search engines were quite similar, I generally preferred the results from Google. In this respect, I'm not sure that Google is necessarily better than Bing, but for me I do prefer the overall look of how Google displays the results of a search.

There are numerous subtle differences between Google and Bing. It appears to me that Google has many more options for searching than Bing. Google's instructions for searching seemed much more user friendly and much more complete than the instructions given by Bing. One of the first differences I noticed was that Bing instructs users to spell words correctly, whereas the Google search engine ignores spelling. Another difference between Bing and Google is that Bing has the capability to connect to your Facebook account. I am not really sure what the benefit of this feature would be, but it is available for those who want it. Personally, I can't think of any instance in the past in which I was conducting a search and was thinking to myself "I wonder what my friends have searched for" or "I wonder what my friends have to say about this topic." I am not exactly sure how this feature works, but while I was on the Bing page and logged into Facebook, I could see that I was logged into Facebook, so I logged myself out. There are several issues I have with this. First, I do not feel the need to share with everyone what I am searching. Also, I'm fairly confident that my friends are not in the least bit interested in the mundane searches that I do on a regular basis. I doubt any of my friends would even be remotely interested in the fact that I searched for "new Minnesota Social Studies standards" or "GDP of Japan" for example. Google has a similar feature if you are logged in to Google+. I do not have a Google+ account, so I am not sure how this feature works with regards to searching. Even though Bing and Google both allow users to connect to social media, it seems that Bing is definitely touting this feature as a selling point, more so than Google.

The Google and Bing search engines have many similarities. Google has been the dominant search engine for several years and has collected so much information from us in the name of generating revenue from paid advertisements. As the most popular search engine, Google pretty much gets to make its own rules as far as how Web sites will be displayed within search results. Web designers use search engine optimization techniques that they believe will improve the popularity of their Web sites. Of course, no one really knows what Google's algorithms are, so it is a giant guessing game for all involved. Bing seems to me like it is Microsoft's attempt to make its own Google. Bing has a different look than Google and really wants to emphasize the fact that you can connect with Facebook, but other than that, it is very similar to Google. It will be interesting to see if Bing will be able to gain some of Google's market share, or if Google will continue its reign as most popular search engine.