All the fuss about Google versus Bing, Blekko “The Third Search Engine”, search quality issues, and now a major New York Times article on black-hat SEO from, of all companies, J.C. Penney.
So Google or Bing, is that the question?
I don’t think so. A recent article trashing Google trashes Bing even worse. And while Bing has its fans, Bing is clearly playing catch-up with Google on, for example, personalization and handling of local searches.
To really frame the debate, you really need to divide Search into at least four spheres:
1. Informational. In most areas, Google does fabulously well on information searches. Bing does well too.
2. Local commercial. Google has put an enormous amount of work into this area over the last year and is mainly doing a fine job of it. Bing does well but clearly not as well.
3. Niche commercial. If you are looking to buy something in a niche market, again, Google and Bing both do well (and their results are very similar).
4. National commercial. This is really where all the discussion and criticism comes in. If you are doing a search for an online store or other non-localized items, such as for major consumer items, results vary. Why?
Too Much Money. There are millions, billions of dollars at stake in the results on organic search for the kind of search terms that get millions of searches each month – and from people looking to buy something.
Take health related searches for example. Health care is 12% of the U.S. economy, trillions of dollars a year. What’s it worth to own a top ranking on a term like, say “natural asthma cure”?
The same impulses that lead to a Bernie Madoff lead to many companies investing large sums into various trickery to try and dominate rankings for terms like these.
What’s the solution?
It is really questionable whether there is any ultimate solution, but certainly there are trends, and I believe that for this last category, the trend is towards other solutions than Search.
When I’m looking for a book, I don’t Google it. I go on Amazon.