Google versus Bing search engine comparison

GOOGLE vs. BING

Google v. Bing

Google vs. Microsoft (Bing): Search engine wars

Google is not simply a search engine company: it is synonymous with searching the web much like Coca-Cola is synonymous with soda. However, the software giant Microsoft is attempting to outflank Google by introducing a rival search engine called Bing. Microsoft has floundered in the past when it has moved outside of its software 'comfort zone.' Despite becoming an incredibly successful company thanks to Microsoft Windows, it has failed to unseat Apple as the industry leader in the all-important music, smartphone, and tablet markets. Microsoft is desperately seeking to diversify its assets, given that PCs may soon become obsolete, due to the explosion of mobile computing. Google is its primary competitor in the search engine market.

Porter's five forces of competition

Bargaining power of buyers

In the search engine marketplace, the buying power of web-surfers is extremely high. It is very easy for a web-surfer to select another search engine using his or her browser. It costs nothing for a user to 'vote with her fingertips' and select another search engine if one proves unsatisfactory. Or, an information consumer can simply use two search engines for the same search. Since search engines are free, there is no immediate financial incentive to use one over the other. People rarely use multiple search engines and frequently use one as their default option all of the time.

Bargaining power of suppliers

Search engines are an intellectual product, and thus, other than intellectual capital, there is no cost of input goods that is prohibitive.

Threat of new entrants

The threat of new entrants into the search engine market is relatively low. Given that consumer buying habits are such that people use only a limited number of search engines, combined with the technological manpower necessary to create a viable alternative, the fact that only a company of Microsoft's size was able to create a serious rival to Google is not surprising.

Rivalry amongst competitors

Google so dominates the online search engine market, it is difficult to call Microsoft a truly viable competitor. "It's not clear any amount of advertising can help Microsoft win a bigger slice of searches and their related advertising revenue, which could help pull its unprofitable online division into the black" (Mintz 2009). Despite the fact that unlike Microsoft, Google does not formally advertise the benefits of using its search engine, it still has the lion's share of the search engine marketplace. Google had 66.5% of the U.S. search engine market in April of 2013. Bing had 17.3%, an increase from last year's 15.4. The major third rival, Yahoo, "had a 13.5% share, but they have dropped by 1.5% in the last year, as they are now sitting at 12% for April 2013" (Slegg 2013). However, rather than encroaching upon Google usage, Microsoft seems mainly to be swapping users with its 'also ran' Yahoo. "Yahoo and Microsoft are merely swapping market share between themselves, rather than making a dent in Google's dominance" (Slegg 2013).

Most reviews of the two search engines have found Microsoft to be lacking in thoroughness and quality on a number of major factors. Bing is said to be "still lacking in terms of result quality in response to informative queries. [For example] In this case, I tested the phrase, 'income tax rates.' While the Google search engine results page (SERP) displayed information on both 2012 and 2013 tax rates in the first five listings, the only dated information found in Bing's results was a single listing mentioning 2011 tax rates" (Kumar 2012). Also, "although Google and Bing both offer instant search features -- which display potential search queries as you're typing into the search box -- Google's instant search tends to provide more relevant results, more quickly" (Kumar 2012).

An even more serious deficit regarding Bing is its tendency to return more results with malware: "According to a study by AV Test, an IT security group from Germany, Google is your safest bet if you want to avoid malware. Bing is in second place, but it still gives you five times more likely a chance of landing on a malware website" (Knibbs 2013). While users can self-screen, "since malware websites are getting more sophisticated, they're harder to notice in a sea of legitimate search returns. So taking your chances with Google seems like a better idea" (Knibbs 2013).

Threat of substitute goods