The battle for search engine dominance has existed for a long time and, despite popular perception, it isn’t as simple as Google vs. Bing. The reality is that Google remained the unchallenged king in the search space due to its innovative search features, extensive database, optimization, and sophisticated search algorithms. This does not mean that there are no other search engines with better features. Some search engines like DuckDuckGo offer better privacy settings than Google because they do not personalize searches or run ad-based censorship. This means users can safely browse the internet. Google, on the other hand, has faced multiple lawsuits over privacy, advertising, and intellectual property issues.
Bing is a distant second in the search engine market share. The company has consistently redesigned and improved its search result to offer a better platform for its clients. Despite the effort, Bing has a long way to go if it is to match Google’s search volume, algorithms, and database. As technology continues to develop and digitalization takes center stage, people are finding other ways to search for answers. Most people nowadays are focusing on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and TikTok for content
Also, Youtube tutorials now provide practical solutions to researchers who want comprehensive guidelines for doing things. This does not mean that Google will become obsolete. However, all these alternative search methods have significantly impacted Google’s search volume in the recent past. With AI entering the search space, we can only wait to see how things turn out for Google, Bing, and other search engines. In this Google vs. Bing guide, we will comprehensively compare the two search engines, highlighting their key differences to help you make an informed decision.
Google vs. Bing: Side-By-side Comparison
| Specs | Bing | |
|---|---|---|
| Launch Date | September 4th, 1998 | June 3rd, 2009 |
| URL | Google.com | Bing.com |
| Daily Searches | 6.9 billion | 900 million |
| Annual Revenue (2022) | $282.83 billion | $11.59 billion |
| Market Share | 92.2% | 3.42% |
| Founder(s) | Larry Page, Sergey Brin | Steve Ballmer |
| Language Support | Supports multiple languages | Supports multiple languages |
| Search Volume | Handles the largest search volume globally | Handles a smaller search volume |
| Features | Text search, image search, maps, video search, news, shopping, books, finance, scholarly literature | Text search, image search, maps, video search, news, shopping |
Google vs. Bing: Overview
The History of Google
Google is the most popular search engine. It was founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They both founded the company while they were PhD students attending Stanford University in California.
The company has grown through multiple acquisitions, partnerships, and innovations over the years. There are services based on work and productivity, which are Google Docs, Google Sheets, Slides, and Gmail for sending emails. There are also scheduling and time management services, including Calendar and Google Drive for cloud storage.
Moreover, there are many services linked with communication, navigation, language translation, video sharing, photo editing, and much more. Google is currently leading the development of the Android mobile operating system, the Google web browser, and Chrome OS, which are lightweight operating systems based on the Chrome browser.
Between 2010 and 2015, Google moved towards creating hardware. Partnerships were formed among major electronics manufacturers during the production of their next-gen devices. Multiple hardware products were released in October 2016, including the Google Home smart speaker, Google Wi-Fi wireless mesh router, and virtual reality headsets. Google also looked into becoming an internet carrier, examples being Google Fibre, Google Fi, and Google station. To this day, Google has become the most visited and most popular website in the world.
In the wake of AI, Google recently announced an artificial intelligence chatbot named Bard as competition to ChatGPT AI. The technology is still in its initial stages, and we expect things to get more interesting in the search in the near future.
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The History of Bing
Bing was founded by Microsoft in 2009 as a replacement for live search. There were a number of new features at the time, including search suggestions when questions were written with a list of related searches. In October 2011, Microsoft stated that they were working on a new technology to provide search results at a faster rate and be more relevant. In 2012 another redesign was announced by Microsoft.
The search engine that includes a sidebar was to be redesigned to be better than it was. Fast-forwarding to the present, Bing has become the second most popular search engine that has been used. Microsoft has integrated ChatGPT AI in its new Bing, a big upgrade as it will have more AI-enabled features for easy and faster search.
Google vs. Bing: What Are the Differences?
Google is the most dominant search engine, with robust features and optimization tools for enhanced search results. Its popularity has seen it claim the largest market share as other search engines trail so far behind it. While most of its offerings are similar to Bing, some things stand out for each of them. From home page quality, market share, and video search features, here are the main differences between the two search engines.
Market Share
Google dominates with over 92% of the market share. Bing has only under 4% meaning Bing will have to grow over 24 times to get to where Google is today. So, why does this matter, and why is it important? The more search volume you get, the more data you have about what most people are searching for. This allows you to optimize your results better, and Google has a massive edge here.
Name Recognition
Google has been around since 1998, and they haven’t changed their names since then. Google is pretty much synonymous with searching. When people search, they don’t say I’m going to search; they say I’m going to ‘Google’ it. Bing, on the hand, has had a troubled naming history. They started as MSN search at the beginning, and when that didn’t go anywhere, they rebranded to windows live search. That was a mouthful, so they changed the name to Bing in 2008 and eventually Microsoft Bing in 2018. With the ongoing ChatGPT AI integration into Bing, we will likely see another name for the new Bing.
Home Page Quality
Everyone is familiar with the Google home page. It’s simple and efficient, and you can even describe it as a little bit blunt. It’s definitely not flashy and just focuses on getting you the results. The search bar is straightforward. You type your search queries and get all the related or popular searches about your subject of interest.
Bing’s home page, on the other hand, is a lot more flashy. You will be greeted by a bright image of the day. You can customize how you want your home page to look by minimizing the popup news icons. The search bar is similar to Google’s, only that the results will vary depending on the database. If you like new images every day, Bing will impress you.
Popular Queries
It turns out that a lot of people who use search engines use it for branded or navigational queries. So that’s people looking up YouTube, Facebook, or Amazon. As a funny story on Bing, it turns out that the top query is Google. That means that people open up the Bing search engine, search for Google and then go to Google to conduct their search.
Tail Queries
A tail query is something that not many people search for, and this is an area where Google excels. For example, if you search for Kevin cookie company’s chocolate chip cookie recipe, you will see the results in the first position on Google. Yet it doesn’t show up at all on Bing. Once again, Google has a higher market share and knows what people are searching for and, as a result, can handle the tail better. Unfortunately for Bing, it’s a classic chicken and egg problem. To get better search results, you need more traffic, but to get more traffic, you need better results.
Video Search
With Google, the video results look like standard search results. It’s really not that visual. Also, when you play a video, it sends you off to another website. With Bing, on the other hand, the previews are more visual. It’s easier to find the video content that you are looking for. When you hover over a video, it plays a preview, and the video also plays directly in Bing, so it is very easy to jump from video to video. You’d think Google would do a better job here because it owns YouTube, but Bing is the clear winner.
Image Search
For image search, both show pretty rich images and offer additional tools or filters that allow you to filter down the size, color, and whether the image is copyrighted. When you click on an image preview, Google shows the image in the top corner, and instead, they continue to prioritize the results view. On the other hand, Bing gives a very lovely large preview.
This makes Bing preferable in that aspect. Searching for images on Bing takes less effort. The horizontal scrolling panel occupies the entire screen. When you click an image, it gives you a full view without redirecting you to the website. This allows you to view multiple images within a short time.
While google allows you to search by images, you can only paste image URLs or download them from your device. Bing image search lets you drag images from your desktop or take photos with your webcam or phone.
©SergioVas/Shutterstock.com
Google vs. Bing: 7 Must-Know Facts
- Google is the world’s largest search engine by market share.
- Bing is currently the second most popular search engine, second only to Google.
- Google has social networking sites, which include Google+ and YouTube, while the new Bing is expected to incorporate user comments, likes, and activities posted on popular social networks.
- Bing has a lower search volume compared to Google.
- Both search engines are now embracing the AI revolution by integrating AI chatbots into their search engines.
- Bing’s approach to data tracking is more security centered compared to Google.
- Both search engines offer Ads that work almost similarly, but Google Ads are easier to navigate compared to Bing Ads.
Google vs. Bing: Which is Better?
Both search engines have been investing heavily in recent years. This shows that competition is a good and healthy thing. Without Google or Bing, they would undoubtedly not be as good as they are today. As the AI battle between the two search engines gains momentum, we expect to see better-advanced search features and more comprehensive search results. Bing will probably step up and claim a larger stake in market share in the coming days. However, as things are now, Google will continue occupying the search throne for as long as it takes other search engines to advance their algorithms to match its level.
