It has taken Microsoft many long years to finally realise that the reason no-one liked MSN Search and Live Search was because there was no immediate way to filter out results from other countries. It used to be the case of "Good luck finding a SA Company". Well Microsoft have finally stepped up to the plate with Bing which is a search engine that does indeed compete with Google in the fact that it has the "only for South Africa" option. The majority of website users in South Africa are looking for local products and local sites which is what has put Google ahead of the game for many years as it has been the only major search engine to offer this option.
Microsoft has invested over $100-million in advertising for their “Decision Engine “ search engine. As they try to get more than 8% of the US search market, my guess is that they will now see more of their market share coming from their international users because of this local search feature.
So what is so different about Bing?
From a first-off impression I was not very impressed. When I first logged onto Bing I was sure that I was staring at a Google clone.
- The layout was the same except for Bing having a pretty interactive picture in the background.
- The links all seamed to mark the same options as Google
- The search results (SERPS) were identical to Google with the standard blue links and green URL reference
- The preferences and options are identical
- The cached page option is identical
- Windows Live is the same as iGoogle and Bing Maps is very similar to Google Maps
- Microsoft Advertising which is Microsofts PPC looks exactly like Google Adwords and are in the same place on the page
At first I thought that this was a mistake by Microsoft, but the more I thought about it the more I thought that they really did not have a choice. There was no way to take on a legend like Google so the old saying goes “If you can't beat them – Join them”. Microsoft took the Google shell that users are used to and tweaked it by adding slightly more functionality. Some very neat additional features you will notice are as follows:
- The very cool extra content pop-out which is located by hovering to the right of the individual results. The great thing about this is that it also gives you a few of the target pages' internal links.
- The related search bar to the left of the results is quick and easy to access
- Their image search is much better presented to the user
- They have integrated Bing into MSN Search so that it searches Bing by default.
- They have the very cool "Popular Now" link which shows the top searches (only on the Bing.com and not the Bing.co.za)
How will Bing effect SEO companies
Bottom line is that SEO companies will now have to cater for Bing just as much as they did for Google. These companies need to start to use the tools that Bing offers like Bing's Webmaster Tools and Bing Maps. Microsoft is starting to cater for South Africa so will need to make sure we stay ahead of the game by trying out their product. The search results in the pages are different, if your site was #1 on Google it may be #8 on Bing. The two search engines may look very similar but behind the scenes they use different algorithms for their search so the SEO company needs to adjust to that.
Will Bing gain search market share in South Africa?
My answer is "Yes". Many South Africans use MSN Messanger and other Microsoft programs that may make Bing their default. There is a chance that if South Africans can get the same sort of local results that they would usually get from Google then they may indeed embrace the concept.
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