bing

If Bing is copying Google, then Yahoo is copying Google too!

February 6, 2011 by Raj Agrawal 2 Comments

Lets not forget the recent revelation of yet another idea stealing attempt by Microsoft also applies to Yahoo.

Not very recently, Yahoo! and Microsoft entered into a deal where Microsoft’s Bing will be the search engine for all Yahoo! websites. This deal has been agreed to continue for 10 years from the date. Now, very recently Google accused Bing of copying their search results, Microsoft rubbished this claim and in response, Google backed their claim with valid statements. Bing was busted. Google thinks of one possibility being that Microsoft has been monitoring the user behaviour and modifying it’s search results accordingly with it’s toolbar on the user’s computer. Google finds this unethical because they spend a significant amount of money, time on R&D to construct and improve their search engine’s capability.

So, what does this point to? This means Yahoo! search may also be consciously or unconsciously copying the search results from Google because of the fact that it’s search algorithm is primarily being powered by Bing.

google-vs-microsoft-bing-vs-yahoo — A comical illustration

The following statement from Yahoo! – Microsoft deal’s press release has a lot to say about this,
Microsoft’s Bing will be the exclusive algorithmic search and paid search platform for Yahoo! sites. Yahoo! will continue to use its technology and data in other areas of its business such as enhancing online advertising technology.

SearchEngineJournal posted an article stating how Google backed up it’s claims, Amit Singhal, the Google Fellow who’s backing up the accusations, runs us through the entire story. It starts with the term “tarsorrhaphy,” a surgical procedure that almost no one knows about — and that Google was the first to find the common misspellings for. While Google queries for the misspelled word returned the typical smug “didn’t you mean” suggestion, Bing seemed to be lifting the top Google result without bothering to give the corrected spelling.

However, this was just the start. Google reps started looking at the query results from Bing, focusing on both common and bizarre terms to get a sense of the field. The definite trend was that the top Google result, even when it was “something [Google] would consider mistakes of our algorithms,” was displayed as the top Bing result.

Things really start to point toward one of the reasons behind Yahoo! – Bing’s search deal. Does this mean both giants had a meticulous plan to fight against Google Search’s success by striking such deal in the name of research and innovation?

The Yahoo-Bing Vs Google Story

August 15, 2009 by Raj Agrawal Leave a Comment

A new chapter in the Search Engine – Online Advertising Story

Some time ago, Microsoft unveiled it’s new search engine – Bing, which created a big buzz on the web world. Now, Google is working on a revamped version of it’s search engine, code named “Caffeine”. While Google has no plans to change the user interface like what Microsoft has done with Bing, it is said that Caffeine will change the way Google search indexes, crawls and ranks the search results, making it much better than it is now. Even though Google search enjoys a “virtual monopoly” in the world of search engines, it plans to maintain the fact by building the next version of Google search.

Bing is a lot better then Microsoft’s live search and easily comparable to Google. Bing features better & faster results, blocks explicit content (to a very good extent) and has an appealing UI. All this is OK. But, what does the 10 year Yahoo-Bing deal involve? Well, Yahoo will halt it’s own search engine for 10 years and which will be replaced by Bing. This means that the strategy will involve Microsoft to use Yahoo traffic to divert ad sales from Google. Microsoft will give Yahoo 88 percent of the search ad sales made on its Web site, above the usual commission of 70 to 80 percent. Yahoo will sit back and focus on generating more traffic and more money.

Google Vs Bing

June 15, 2009 by Raj Agrawal 1 Comment

Blocking Explicit Content

It has always been a matter of concern regarding the easy access to explicit content on the internet. Google Safe Search filter does not really block all the potentially explicit content while browsing through. In fact, Safe Search is available for Images only. Even if search for the term “hot” with the filter set as “Use strict filtering (Filter both explicit text and explicit images)”, the image results will still return with content that won’t be suitable for minors. And not to forget the “Related search” suggestions.

Microsoft’s Bing is proving a tough competitor to Google Search with it’s speed an better search results. Bing is strict on blocking explicit content for web searches and image searches too. Bing has a separate invisible domain explicit.bing.net for allowing users to search explicit content. If you don’t want to it, just block explicit.bing.net the way you block any other objectionable site.

I am not being Anti-Google. It’s interesting how Google will answer to what Bing has done for blocking pornography.

The New York Post reports: But co-founder Sergey Brin is so rattled by the launch of Microsoft’s rival search engine that he has assembled a team of top engineers to work on urgent upgrades to his Web service, The Post has learned.

It was destined that Google Search had to face a tough competitor. Lets see how Google and Bing outsmart each other.