Bing vs. Google

Bing vs. Google

With an 87% market share of UK-based users in June 2020, Google Search maintains a commanding lead over the search industry. But should it? Google's closest competitor in the UK search market is Microsoft Bing, which maintained an 8% market share in the same period of time. With a market share 10x that of Bing, is Google's product 10x better? What is driving this enormous difference in usage? Impression.co.uk, a UK digital marketing agency, dug into the differences between the two search engines1. This blog post highlights a couple interesting differences. 

 302 Redirects

At first glance, both Google and Bing appear to offer similar products that utilize search engine optimization algorithms to recommend websites based on page rankings, backlinks, website technical health, mobile friendliness, activity, and a number of other criteria. Impression dug deeper into the search methodology to find a number of technical differences, including one regarding the use of redirects. 

"When implementing permanent redirects in SEO, it's good housekeeping to use 301 redirects as opposed to temporary 302 redirects. The use of 302 redirects can sometimes cause indexing issues with Google, but Bing's system works by automatically interpreting a 302 redirect as a 301 after it has been crawled a few times. 302 redirects are therefore unlikely to cause any problems with Bing. To ensure your site is optimised for both Bing and Google, however, it's important not to use 302 redirects when a permanent redirect is required".

Social Signals

If an article or website is receiving many likes, reposts, or shares on various social media sites, search users may wish to know the underlying buzz that an article is generating. Bing weighs the impact of social signals into its search algorithms, while Google does not. 

"In 2016, Google's Gary Illyes was asked if the search engine incorporates social signals (e.g. consumer-brand interaction on Facebook) into its ranking algorithms. His concise answer: "no, we don't". Bing, however, is much more keen on social media engagement, a preference that is reflected by its use of social signals as a ranking factor. Pages that have earned a greater number of likes, shares, and retweets are more likely to rank highly on Bing. Some form of social media marketing should be integrated into your digital marketing strategy by now, but Bing gives you an added incentive in the form of ranking boosts for strong social media performance."

Rewards

Lastly, Bing offers its users a fairly robust rewards system. Users may redeem points earned by using Bing for gift cards to Amazon, Starbucks, Microsoft, or many other retailers. I personally use this service, and earn approximately $30 worth of Starbucks lattes each year, courtesy of Microsoft. 

https://www.impression.co.uk/blog/bing-differ-google/