A new report from the Catalyst Group shows searchers giving good marks to Microsoft’s new search engine Bing. However, many of the same searchers indicated they plan on continuing with Google since they are familiar with it and use many of its additional features like Gmail and Google News.
Key findings from the study are reported in this TechCrunch article, which says even if Bing proves to be just as good as Google, it may not matter since Google’s brand is so established and well-known.
A focus group of 12 people was monitored with eye-tracking cameras as they conducted searches…after this, each individual completed a survey and interview. All participants were exclusive Google users before the experiment.
Test subjects were asked to rate Bing on specific criteria: visual design, organization of features, filtering options and relevance of results. It beat Google on everything except relevance of results, the most important criteria.
Catalyst CEO Nick Gould concludes that Microsoft “created something as good as Google and that is not good enough.” Overall, the test subjects “were not swayed.” No wonder Microsoft is spending up to $100 million on Bing marketing.
See the full results of the Catalyst Group’s study including data from the eye-tracking cameras used to gauge the attention given to ad space on each search engine.
See forum discussion at DigitalPoint Forums.
Tags: bing, google, search engine optimization
What an awesome article about search engine optimization. I’m honestly stunned that it has not really been alleged before to such a great length.