What the Heck is Bing Anyway?

Long story short: Bing is Microsoft’s old search engine plus some new features, rebranded and advertised aggressively to try and take search market share from Google.

No, it’s not some new Google-killer startup or a genius’s revolutionary breakthrough in search. It’s just Microsoft putting a new face on old products and distancing themselves from the branding to make it look new. Before consolidating everything into Bing, Microsoft had two search engines and a bunch of web properties that searched for different things.

They’ve now consolidated everything into one interface and renamed it Bing.

Some of the stuff that’s rolled into Bing:

• MSN Search (Microsoft’s original search engine)
• Live Search (an offshoot search engine by Microsoft)
• Farecast – Now Bing Travel – (airfare prediction and booking engine)
• Medstory – Now Bing Health – (health-based search)
• Jellyfish.com – Now Bing Shopping – (shopping comparison)

Not Much Has Changed

For search engine optimization purposes it’s business as usual for Microsoft search. Your MSN ranking will transfer pretty much untouched onto Bing, with no extra work required to keep your website ranking well. But that’s not to say that a Bing ranking will get you very far.

According to Hitwise, in June Bing managed a 5.25% piece of the search market share pie, and comScore clocked Bing in at around 12% immediately following their launch at the beginning of the month.

Compare those numbers with Google’s consistent 65% to 75% market share, and a Google killer Bing is not. Microsoft would like you to think different, however, with a $100 million dollar advertising campaign designed to get you to abandon Google:

But the the guys over at CollegeHumor did a hilarious job of cutting through Microsoft’s messaging with this edited version of a Bing ad. Bing: the best way to Google!

So will you be switching to Bing?