Take the Bing versus Google Challenge.

Bing It On Remember the Coke V Pepsi wars? Bing has decided to go down the same route, and offer a blind 'search tasting' between them and Google. I don't actually think this is a very good idea, since if they lose the test, it'll just confirm to the player that they were right not to use Bing, and they'll firmly stay with Google. If they lose, they may consider switching engines, but I think it's a forlorn hope. And if Bing wins, and the player is a Bing user, they don't get anything other than confirmation. It also smacks a little bit of desperation as well I think.

Anyway, that's all beside the point. If you want to try the 'search tasting', go to 'Bing it on' (or 'Bing Bong, Microsoft calling' if you're old enough to remember the Avon ads) and you can type in 5 different searches, or use ones that they offer. You then get to see the results side by side and can choose left, right or a draw. At the end of the test, they'll give you the results. Of course, if you're a savvy searcher you'll be able to tell without any work which one is which due to the style of results and the emphasis, but try and put that on one side. Bing reckon that they win 2-1 with the small print saying "Based on a comparison of web search results pane only; excludes ads, Bing’s Snapshot and Social Search panes and Google’s Knowledge Graph." To be honest, that's a hell of an exclusion, but still. I tried it and I decided one was an equal result, but the other four went to Google. Opppsy! Not quite what Bing was hoping for there.

I'd be really interested in seeing your results - which did you prefer, Bing or Google, and was it a close call or a walkover for one engine or the other. Please comment!

If you like the idea of blind search tasting there's a couple of other places that you can go. Take yourself to Blekko and run a search and include /monte after it - for example dog /monte and Blekko will present you with 3 choices - Blekko, Bing and Google. Do that a few times, and see which you prefer.

Alternatively try the Blind Search at Fejus, which gives you a choice of Yahoo, Bing and Google.

Comments

[Laura]

Google won 3-2, but the results were actually pretty similar. I won't be moving away from Google, though, I like the variety in the search results - like images when I search for a building, it is just a bit more interesting.

[Arne van Elk]

Bing won 0 rounds, Google won 4 rounds, 1 draw (Actually I was under the impression that I had chosen Bing at least two times).

"new food fair" - Google
Westone jazz guitar - Draw
amsterdam - Google
SEO - Google
"Mark Rutte" - Google

[Seth Sevenyoln]

Bing won 4 to 1 both times I tried.