WebmasterWorld's founder, Brett Tabke, switched to Bing about two years ago. He changed his default search provider from Google to Bing and stuck with Bing for two years. After using Bing for two years, Brett posted a thread at WebmasterWorld describing the pros and cons of Bing, compared to Google.
In short, Brett is sticking with Bing. He enjoys the user interface, the results and the speed. He dislikes the depth of the results and the maps, but overall, he feels Bing will continue to improve and will remain his search engine of choice in the near future.
Here is Brett's full review and I'd recommend going to the thread and checking out the other details and responses.
Brett's Notes:
- I find the top page of Bing results to be as good as Google.
- I return to Google about 30% of the time for difficult topics (mostly in long tail research mode).
- Depth is not as good on Bing in the page 2+ results.
- Bing is much easier to use and faster to use. More reliable. Even if I can't find what I want - I stick with Bing to avoid the interface mess of Google.
- Rarely do I search images, but when I do, Bing rocks.
- I like and use Google maps over Bing maps 100% of the time. (Although I do find Bing maps to have fresher and more accurate directions)
- News - Google is fresher at news than Bing.
Where Bing Disappoints:
- 2nd page results.
- Ads vs results are not always clear if you are clicking on an ad or not.
- Filtering. I occasionally run into adults in clean searches.
- Ads are extremely 'broad match'. Too much. I find alot of useless ads on Bing. (search for "hp printer driver downloads" and compare)
Where Google Disappoints:
- Ease of use. Google has put so much misc junk on to the serps, it truly is hard to sort out. From Maps, multi-indents, to ever changing irreproducible results, it is a cluster that you can't count on. It just isn't reliable or trusty worthy to me.
- Compatibility. I use numerous devices to connect in a day (Opera Desktop, PalmPre, iPad, iPhone, FireFox). I continuously run into all kinds of Google compatibility bugs and find I have to go to another search engine. I find it is basically suitable for IE and Chrome. After that, it is a crap shoot if Google is going to work for you.
- They are so heavy with the 'authority' brands, that good content is often buried. I find this most often true when searching for brand name related content. For example: right now I am researching Zimbra email server and it is hard to find content that wasn't generated by Zimbra.
Brett's Bottom line:
- Google is so busy trying to be some body, they have forgot that they already are some body.
- Bing - stay the course. You got me to change for 2 years, you are doing something right.
Do you agree or disagree? Did you switch?
Forum discussion at WebmasterWorld.
