Google might have changed the face of the Internet searching with its singular, and heavily guarded, search technology that has proven to yieldmore meaningful results than the established search engines of the past (despite attempts by businesses utilizing search engine optimization to try and manipulate the results!), however there is a new aspirant trying tobring to the Internet search yet another makeover, and it seemsto be succeeding where so many others have tripped up. Bing.com, Microsoft’s newest baby was released late in May 2009, and has since demonstrated increases in acceptance each month in a market where many were certain that Google could not, and would not, be touched possibly in our times. Scarcely a few months after Microsoft’s arrival with Bing, Google’s market presence reduced by 0.1 percent, while Bing soared to 9.3 percent of market share. Many other search engines have stagnated in their share of the pie, but when the challenging search engine Yahoo has only 19.3 percent of the market share, it is remarkable that a fresh player such as Bing can climb to almost 10 percent immediately, and seems that it won’t just stop there.
What’s so outstanding about Bing? Is it just the $100million Internet Marketing and Search engine marketing program that has it eroding away at the search engine market share? Or is there something actually significant in the way the search happens that sets it above the rest, making it a genuine challenger to Google? Conceivably both. For instance, Bing offers a visual search function which allows a user to describe what they’re looking for and then narrow down their search based on image results, thus a user who can remember what an object looked like but can’t remember what it’s called, can easily place what they’re after. Saw Caught a new model vehicle on the way but don’t understand what make or type it was? Bing’s visual search will help you find that car by presenting you with a line-up of photos from which to identify the nearest and eventually find arrive at the exact car you were going for. This may appear a simple concept to begin with, but Bing believes that they are revolutionizing the way everyone will think of Internet searches in the future. By making it more graphical, they expect to redesign the way users search the web. It’s no surprise then that they like to call Bing a ‘decision engine,’ rather than a ‘search engine.’
