Bing vs Google – Which Search Engine is Better?
Bing and Google have always aimed to satisfy their customers’ informational needs as the most influential search engines in the market.
Both offer speed, mobile friendliness, ease of use, SERP features, local search, maps, voice search, and paid advertising. Regardless, the question remains, which search engine is better and why? Is Bing better than Google? Or does Google surpass all expectations in comparison to Bing?
The entire phenomenon of the internet revolves around search engines. Even though Google is dominant in market share and popularity among users, Bing has its benefits and markets where it is especially relevant. That is why people are concerned about which search engine to pick.
Let us explore the two search engines, Google and Bing, in-depth and help you choose the one that offers unique value and suits your needs best.
Table of Contents
Bing vs Google: Which is Better Search Engine?
You may be acquainted with both these search engines, Google and Bing, but to refresh, let’s look at what they are and then, for a fair comparison, discuss their features in detail.
So, which browser is your piece of cake? Let’s find out!
About Google:
With the main focus of analysing backlinks authority, Google was created by a search firm in 1998. It started as a research project known as BackRub due to its ranking method of checking site backlinks to determine relative authority.
Its initial service, backlinks, became the backbone of Google and has helped it propel itself to become the industry leader it is today.
About 70% of searchers in the world use Google to perform their research on the internet. Google practices frequent algorithm updates compared to Bing, ensuring that it remains the best search engine page. These aspects gave Google the edge over its competitors, and it continues to do so.
Further, into the article, we will discuss some of the best features that Google offers; keep on reading to find out.
Learn More: Google Search Help
About Bing:
Before the rebranding in 2009, the Bing.com search engine was known as Windows Live Search, created by Microsoft initially in 2006. Windows Live Search was originally launched in competition against Google’s Search engine.
After the launch, Bings’ initial and most significant update introduced the indexing technology, called the “Tiger“. The most prominent factor of this update was that Bing didn’t update its algorithms frequently compared to Google.
This was an exciting and crucial development because regular algorithm changes affect your website’s rankings. And that is not the only factor making the Bing and Google comparison more interesting, let us discuss some of these comparisons between the two search engines.
Bing vs Google: How Do They Compare?
For your ease, and to help you make an informed decision, we’ll explore the features that both Google and Bing search engines offer their users and how their differences affect the overall user experience. From their market share and SERP features to technical aspects, priority in ranking factors to mobile friendliness and ease of use. Let’s get right into it!
1. Market Share: Bing vs Google
It’s challenging to talk about Google vs Bing because Google holds a whopping 92.18% share of the global search engine market. Nonetheless, we will give you a fair estimate of things so that you can decide for yourself.
Google holds the market share of mobile devices at 83%, while Bing’s is only 9%. Bing ranks second with a market share of 9.27%. However, Bing seems more dominant on desktop computers, with a 15.53% market share, while Google’s is 81.28%.
Bing vs Google is a challenging discussion in terms of revenue because Microsoft and Alphabet report the annual total. For 2020, Microsoft said a total of $143.015 billion, while Alphabet reached $182.527 billion.
Explore more: Ecosia vs Google
2. Multimedia Search: Bing vs Google
People are primarily into graphics and illustrative work; the more attractive the presentation, the more enticed the users are. Advanced search by image is not only aesthetically alluring but can prove immensely helpful. This is another category where we can safely say Bing is prevailing.
If you’re not sure which term to search for, you can easily insert and find relevant results in an image search. Multiple advanced search options, such as resolution, length, publication date, etc., are available for videos, and the filters can be compared with YouTube’s.
On the other hand, Google probably doesn’t bother much about multimedia searches because they own YouTube.
3. Advertising: Bing vs Google
E-commerce has come a long way since the pandemic; more companies are joining the vast sea daily. And with more businesses coming online, online advertising has become even more crucial.
Bing is a better choice when it comes to competition. With such a diverse content volume, a whopping 90.63% doesn’t get any organic traffic from Google.
Everyone wants their ads to show on the first page of search results, and this aspect works the same for both Bing and Google. These search engines provide many filters to target their desired audience, such as location, age, gender, etc. Unfortunately, this creates a complex, love-hate relationship between most users and their browsers.
The competition between Google and Bing on this is critical; both provide different yet effective benefits. If you’re advertising on Google, remember that you can import Google Analytics into their SEO tool with just a single click.
4. Maps: Bing vs Google
Google Maps is leading in all countries, without a doubt; this is primarily due to the various features associated with it. Compared to Google, Bing doesn’t offer a map app, which is a significant drawback since 80% of the users are mobile users.
When we break down Bing vs Google stats for travel options, Google wins by having cycling routes. The directions are alike, but Google’s data about traffic is more precise. Local search is another element that Google vanquishes, as Bing’s results can be significantly outdated.
5. Ranking Factors: Bing vs Google
While Google and Bing have many similarities in their SEO ranking factors, there are significant differences. This applies when it comes to weighting for certain ranking factors in comparing Google and Bing outcomes.
Although, you won’t have to revamp your whole website for you to optimize it for Bing. Even then, you could make a few tweaks to ensure that your website ranks highly on both search engines.
6. Organic Search: Bing vs Google
Organic search results are unpaid listings on a search engine results page (SERP). These results are based on relevance to the user’s search query, incoming links, good search engine optimization (SEO) efforts and domain authority.
Although both Google and Bing aim to locate the most suitable and relevant content that fits their users’ search, both search engines operate on entirely different algorithms.
Nonetheless, there are greater chances of significant overlap when you optimize for both Google and Bing. High-quality content that reflects the needs and interests of their target audience is hence critical for brands. Bing prefers content that has been published for a while and has gained good traffic; this entails Bing favours official top-level domains like .edu or .gov.
On the contrary, when we look at Google’s approach, we see equality; Google regards popular and commercial websites properly, if not equally.
Even though you can’t optimize your website for both search engines based on these preferences, you must compare their results. That’s because your website might be a preferred choice by one of these search engines’ ranking processes. That’s thanks to its type of domain.
7. Technical SEO: Bing vs Google
Google and its coveted ranking come to mind when you think of SEO. Fewer people are aware of this, but Bing is also an essential search engine for online marketing and boosting your sales. When you invest in on-page technical SEO, you get positive search results on both Google and Bing. In order for you to develop a solid SEO strategy for your business, you need to take both Bing and Google into consideration.
So, if the thought of learning how to optimize your search results ranking on a whole new platform seems like it’s not worth your time, it is.
Even then, many consider a few discrepancies between these factors necessary.
Compared to Bing, Google emphasizes backlinks, which are still crucial to Bing’s SEO ranking. The sites with more backlinks are held in higher ranks with Bing, just like Google
8. SERP Features: Bing vs Google
Bing has tried to match Google’s pace throughout many SERP feature updates over the years. While many of the mentioned SERP features were initially introduced by Google, Bing now uses them too:
- Knowledge cards/panels/carousels
- Maps (local packs)
- News (top stories)
- Images
- Video
- Sitelinks
- Mini-site links
- In-depth articles
- Featured snippets (text/list/table)
- Recipes
- Apps
- Reviews
- Related searches
- Jobs
- Flights
- Shopping
The Accelerated Mobile Pages SERP features that Google serves to mobile users are a noticeable lack in the Bing search results, just like the scholarly literature (Google Scholar). Depending on your point of view, the improved implementation of SERP features across both search engines could be considered a blessing or a curse.
9. Voice Search: Bing vs Google
According to an Adobe survey in July 2019, 48% of consumers use voice search for “general web searches” voice search conveys a massive opportunity for SEOs and digital marketers, but what are the fundamental differences between the functionalities of Bing and Google? Let’s find out!
It has been noted that Google and Bing offer different benefits to voice search users.
Clark Boyd has argued that Microsoft’s digital assistant, Cortana, has outstanding speech recognition but a less accurate understanding of context than Google Assistant.
The point regarding understanding context points to recent Google developments, such as the BERT algorithm update.
We might want to know which of the two major search engines’ results are used to answer queries most often as a further point of contrast, right? Much to our dismay, there are no published statistics about the number of intelligent speaker VPA queries Bing answers compared to Google.
Though, it is to be noted that three of the four VPAs – Apple’s Siri, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Amazon’s Alexa, use Bing for this purpose. Only Google Assistant provides answers from Google. We can thus assume that most savvy speaker users receive answers to their questions from Bing rather than Google.
Bing Vs Google - Pros and Cons
Pros of Google:
1. More relevant results:
Google search engine organises your search results clearly and precisely. On the other hand, Bing doesn’t help you in this aspect since it won’t manage your search results. This point is crucial if you are searching for a time-sensitive technical subject.
2. Instant search feature saves time:
This is a feature that shows how information-rich Google is; if you’re not sure about your search or the terms to use, Google’s instant search feature will save you time, and your search efficiency will be boosted.
Cons - Google (Compared to Bing):
- Bing doesn’t have many users, but according to different studies, it has a better click-through rate than Google, which has helped Bing to mitigate the critical issue of a lower audience. Click-through rate refers to when a user clicks or interacts with an advertisement.
- Using Google as the central search engine for marketing has many benefits. However, due to its popularity and more comprehensive user interaction, it’s costly to publish advertisements with google.
- Advertisement costs depend on several factors, like your industry or the competitiveness of the chosen keywords.
- The average price per click for an advert with Google is significantly higher than other search engines such as Bing. But Google’s AdWords system is user-friendly and will help strengthen your marketing campaign.
Thus, you could choose to add the primary AdWords campaign to your Google Analytics tool. After finishing the integration, your paid search campaigns will be smoothly followed alongside the site’s performance.
Pros of Bing:
1. Social Integration:
Bing provides effortless and better social connectivity and robust social integration platforms than Google. Bing contracts with social sites, giving it access to more data.
2. Arractive Results Page Layout:
Bing provides a better GUI when it comes to the layout of result pages. The result pages are more attractive and navigable. Also, your search results will be presented neatly on a results page.
Cons Bing (Compared to Google):
- Bing is not a good choice for marketing because, due to its smaller brand familiarity, it is used less than Google.
- Let’s put it this way; if your brand aims to target a younger audience, then Bing is not the search engine for you because Bing users are much older. Many are between 55 and 64, with a demographic of 35+ years old; as a result, another benefit would be that Bing users have higher spending power.
- Suppose you are selling products or services relevant to this demographic. In that case, Bing will serve you best, but you won’t be reaching a broader younger customer base.
- On the other hand, advertising on Bing is more affordable compared to Google. Since a lesser audience is on Bing, the involved advertising costs are lower.
- Bing is automatically available on every Microsoft device; this means that there is a chance that the less tech-savvy portion of users will most likely only use Bing as a search engine.
That’s because they don’t know of other browsers or they don’t wish to switch to using another browser.
Google vs Bing | The Takeaway
Bing and Google are known to be reliable and fulfil the needs of their searchers.
There are a lot of aspects that make them each an excellent choice when looking to do your search online. But keeping your priorities and features offered by each search engine in check will help you make the choice that suits you best.
If you’re a brand owner, consider your requirements and interests before you choose between the two search engines. Both offer prospects for your brand to reach new customers and showcase you in front of millions of potential clients looking for information, products, or services.
Undoubtedly, Google has taken up a reputable position in the search engine market, but Bing has been upping its game. Both search engines have emerged greatly over the past few years and the competition, especially when it comes to their unique features, continues to grow.
Google and Bing are improving the quality and delivery of their services and features, but both have their strong points. Optimization for both is similar; Google focuses more on E.A.T. and links, whereas Bing is known to be more proficient when it comes to on-page optimization and incorporating social signals.
To reach the lion’s share of internet searches or to maximize visibility for your brand, we recommend optimizing for both.
When choosing a search engine that aligns with your business and personal goals, you must consider all the positives and negatives of using Bing or Google.
All in all, the choice remains yours.
