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Bing/Google: The Battle at Bigthink.com recapped

Feb 1, 2011 11:14 pm by Kip Kniskern | 11 comments

Sorry to say we missed all the commotion today, but apparently there was quite a donnybrook between Google and Bing, featuring a whole cast of characters, name calling, accusations, dueling blog posts, and tweet battles. Whew, if this keeps up, it could be a better movie than the Social Network!

Let’s see if we can recap, while you follow along at home.

This morning, just before a Bing sponsored “Farsight 2011: Beyond the Search Box” event, Danny Sullivan posted “Google: Bing is Cheating, Copying our Search Results”. (Later Mary Branscome was to question Sullivan’s timing and motives for posting: “He seems to be saying he posted straight away because Google wanted him to.”). Basically, according to the Sullivan post, Google engineers noticed that Bing was returning similar results to Google for certain searches involving obscure misspelled words. Google set up a “sting”, and low and behold seemed to have proof that Bing used Google search results (captured by the Bing Toolbar, of all things) to show results on Bing.

In the post, Sullivan quoted Bing Director Stefan Weitz, saying he “seemed to confirm the allegation”. Mary Jo Foley then asked for and got a more direct response from Bing:

“We do not copy Google’s results.”

Microsoft’s Harry Shum, Corporate VP for Bing, then posted on the Bing Community blog with some Thoughts on search quality, firing a couple shots back at Google:

We use over 1,000 different signals and features in our ranking algorithm. A small piece of that is clickstream data we get from some of our customers, who opt-in to sharing anonymous data as they navigate the web in order to help us improve the experience for all users.
To be clear, we learn from all of our customers. What we saw in today’s story was a spy-novelesque stunt to generate extreme outliers in tail query ranking. It was a creative tactic by a competitor, and we’ll take it as a back-handed compliment. But it doesn’t accurately portray how we use opt-in customer data as one of many inputs to help improve our user experience.

Google Fellow Amit Singhal fired back:

As we see it, this experiment confirms our suspicion that Bing is using some combination of:
Internet Explorer 8, which can send data to Microsoft via its Suggested Sites feature
the Bing Toolbar, which can send data via Microsoft’s Customer Experience Improvement Program
or possibly some other means to send data to Bing on what people search for on Google and the Google search results they click. Those results from Google are then more likely to show up on Bing. Put another way, some Bing results increasingly look like an incomplete, stale version of Google results—a cheap imitation.
…
So to all the users out there looking for the most authentic, relevant search results, we encourage you to come directly to Google. And to those who have asked what we want out of all this, the answer is simple: we’d like for this practice to stop.

Indeed, this was getting interesting, as TechCrunch noted in “Wow, Microsoft and Google are Punching Each Other in the Face Right In Front of Us!”. Both Matt Cutts from Google and Frank Shaw from Microsoft fired off inflammatory tweets, and things got even more interesting at the search summit at BigThink.com, with Harry Shum playing the search spam card:

I’d say you are really sidestepping the big problems, the origin of the spam, why they appeared in the first place. There must be an economic incentive to create his kind of content. Why? 70% of those pages show Google Ads….You can’t just say because you don’t report to VP of ad sales you have no problem.

Since we missed the whole thing, we’ve been searching for a copy of the webcast of Farsight 2011, and although it’s not up yet at Bigthink.com, Stefan Weitz promised us on Twitter that it will be soon:

So what does it all mean? Well probably more than anything, Google is getting more concerned about competition from Bing, and more willing to “take the gloves off”. The reaction has been mixed as to whether Google’s indignation is warranted, but above all, it looks like this could get a lot more fun, can’t wait to watch the drama unfold!

This entry was posted in Bing, Featured and tagged Bing, Google, Search results. Bookmark the permalink.

http://twitter.com/nisalatp Nisala Aloka Bandara
Well, I am Using Microsoft products, 95% for my works. I don’t mind they anonymously collect my usage informations because I know, they are trying hard to make their products better, that means my works gonna be easier..
If Google or anyone has problem me sharing my activities with Microsoft, well, I will comply and stop using google or whatever the third party who are claiming.
- http://www.muondo.org muondo
  c’est clair que la bataille en matière de moteur de recherche fait vraiment rage!
Anonymous
Considering Google is being investigated by the EU for search manipulation they shouldn’t be moaning about what Bing is doing. I wouldn’t be surprised if Google does the same thing
http://www.timacheson.com/ Tim Acheson
This is utter nonsense.
And yet, the same headline and story have suddenly appeared on seemingly every tech blog. This is pure corporate wartime propaganda from Google. Bing is unique, and superior, with less Spam and junk — but thanks for confirming that I might as well be using Bing as Google can’t tell the difference. Google and Bing give different results, so the algorithm is clearly not the same — please stop lying.
This is also blatant hypocrisy. How dare Google speak of innovation? Google employees have propagated the myth of their innovation for so long, they’ve begun to believe it. Google’s innovation doesn’t extend far beyond search, and that was a decade ago!
Google’s Android OS is blatantly an attempt to copy Apple’s iPhone and iOS. And it’s actually just Java, which they are using without permission.
Google’s Docs is openly just their attempt to emulate MS Office. And Google acquired it, they did NOT innovate it.
Google’s GMail is blatantly copying Hotmail and Yahoo mail.
YouTube was purchased by Google, not innovated by them, presumably because they couldn’t just copy it as normal.
Need I go on?
If Google wants to play dirty let’s put more facts on the table. Sadly people who know the truth don’t have Google’s vast exposure.
- Anonymous
  Totally agree people are just agreeing with Google because they seem to have a hatred against Microsoft
- Yekuniv
  Guys, ask yourself before ask others.
  Where did microsoft get windows and internet explorer? Why did they introduced office web apps?
  And you also know hotmail can not keep up with gmail’s progress and innovation.
  Please…
  - http://www.timacheson.com/ Tim Acheson
    Yekuiniv, you can check the timeline for yourself.
    Hotmail came long before Gmail. Google’s entire business model is essentially to copy other companies and try to put them out of business, first and foremost Microsoft and Apple. But Gmail is inferior, it’s not the number one webmail, it’s not even in the top two! Check the facts.
    Windows was a genuine innovation by Microsoft. Windows XP is ten years old, and it’s still very widely used despite Vista and Windows 7 being much better.
    IE was also a genuine innovation, one of the first web browsers, and the only original web browser still going strong. IE6 is a decade old, but at the time it offered the best available support for web standards, particularly CSS, and it’s still very widely used today despite newer and much better versions being available.
    Microsoft continues to innovate, unlike Google where aquisition is a substitute for innovation (Docs, YouTube, etc), Google uses Python for web apps and Java for Android. Microsoft builds using their own platforms and programming languages. We can talk more about innovation, if you wish, but Google as an innovator is largely a popular myth. Do you know how many new patents Microsoft filed last year?
    Almost every computer in almost every home and business is running Microsoft software, and there is a good reason for that.
Yekuiniv
If they did not steal that exact results that google claiming copied from them, then why don’t they explain how the same result appears there?
- http://www.timacheson.com/ Tim Acheson
  Yekuiniv, see if you get the same results from both search engines. You will find that the results are NOT the same. Bing’s results are better — more relavent and less Spam.
  Anybody can easily prove for themselves that Google is engaged in deception here as usual, if you take the time to check the facts.
http://www.advancedwebads.com/sc/164 Randy Addison
Tim, I definitely agree with you. Google shouldn’t go wild about Bing’s results. I saw all of those examples and they are all logically, copying! Gmail and Google Docs are really good examples.
Anonymous
Bing rules!