I am sure all of you have heard the news yesterday broken by Danny Sullivan: Google: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results. If not, go read it, see Bing's response and then Google's response back. You can also see the group of headlines on this news at Techmeme.
If you are too lazy to read all of it, here is the short version...
Google noticed suspicious similarities between their search results and Bing's search results. They planted some fake results for Bing to snif out via their browser and toolbars and caught Bing taking the bait. They told Danny and the public what Bing was doing, showing all the evidence. Google called Bing a "cheap imitation" of Google. Bing denied it and said they find this as a "spy-novelesque stunt to generate extreme outliers in tail query ranking" and "take it as a back-handed compliment."
Meanwhile, there are many looking at this with shock and awe. Some are mad at Bing for "cheating." Some are mad at Google for not going directly to Bing, behind the scenes. Some are calling Google childish. Some feel Google looks bad here, some feel Bing looks bad here.
So I want to know what you think. Take my poll below:
Forum discussion at Sphinn, DigitalPoint Forums, WebmasterWorld, Google Blogoscoped Forum & Google Webmaster Help.
