» Microsoft’s Bing search engine is here

Microsoft’s Bing search engine is here

Microsoft has launched its new search engine Bing two days ahead of schedule. There isn’t much new here, but Microsoft has finally got its branding strategy in order.

Our regular readers will know that we for a long time has argued that Microsoft would have to change its search engine branding strategy.

At first it was called MSN Search. That wasn’t sexy, but it did at least make sense for those who new MSN. Then it was Windows Live Search, which made no sense at all for a Mac user. What had a search site to do with the Microsoft operating system? Then they shortened it to Live Search, which was slightly more sensible, but a boring corporate design made the site less than charming.

A name to remember

Now Microsoft has gotten its act together. Today, two days ahead of schedule, the company has launched the Bing search engine. The new name is short and snappy, easy to remember and can be used as a verb: “I binged Obama today!”

Microsoft calls “bing” the “sound of found”.

In other words: People will remember the name; they will talk about it and they will find it easier to come back.

Moreover, it is now marketed as a separate service, not to be confused with MSN, Windows or Live or any other concept even we are finding it hard to communicate.

Good!

Bing home page

A visual treat

As for the visual profile, it is elegant, easy on the eye and slightly different from the competition. We like the changing background image on the home page, even if it has no practical use and may make the site slightly slower to load.

We are living in the age if cable and DSL. We may be a little bit more liberal with the use of pictures now, and aesthetics are important.

We also like the way a small part of the image is repeated on search result pages.

Familiar — no radical innovations

The question many observers have asked if the search engine brings in enough new elements and features to make it a real competitor to Google. They have argued that there is nothing new here that distinguishes the search engine from Google, and they are right.

However, we believe they are missing the point. Any regular Google searchers will find themselves at home at Bing right away. The learning curve for using the new Wolfram Alfa search tool is pretty steep; at Bing they can just start searching.

And it has to be that way, if Microsoft is to get a larger share of the search market. They need to appeal to the masses, and regular Joe likes it “easy”.

If Microsoft had a revolutionary new killer search app or a new algorithm that made their search results significantly better that would have been a different matter, but they don’t (and nor does Google).

The most exciting new search tool these days is Twitter’s search engine, and so far neither Microsoft nor Google have managed to buy it.

Play it safe

Because of this it makes perfect sense for Microsoft to play it safe.

The company has a decent search engine, and most people will not see any difference in quality between Bing and Google, which means that the main objective is to convince them that binging is as useful and cool as googling.

That will take a long time, but then again Microsoft has the clout and patience needed for a long term strategy aimed at winning over one Google user at a time.

Main features

That being said, the new Bing site is better than the old Live version, or at least we believe it is. To be honest, we found it hard to make all the announced features work on our computer, because we are living in Norway, Europe.

On the US version Microsoft has followed up on most of the innovations introduced in the Kumo test site (see our article Microsoft learns from Ask.com. Ask.com doesn’t).

At the top there are links to the various vertical search offerings: Web, Images, Videos, Shopping, News, Maps, More (in essence help texts for the vertical searches).

In the left hand column there are listed alternative search queries, helping the searcher to narrow down the search.

History search

The history section found in Kumo has made it into Bing.

Bing says that the Session History remembers your queries within a single browser session for up to 48 hours, “making it easy to track your past queries, the results you clicked on and even the time you accessed a link.”

You may turn it off.

Auto suggest and best match

Bing has an auto-suggest feature that automatically suggests similar terms or common refinements that searchers have used in the past. There is nothing original in this, but it useful all the same.

Bing claims it has a feature called Best Match, whereby it highlights the result most closely matching your query at the top. We never saw this feature in action, not even on the US version

Deep links

Bing is very proud about its Deep Links feature, where they add links to more than one page from a particular site.

Again, this is a feature found on Google as well.

Additional information

Bing tells us that you may get additional information on a site by hovering over a search result . This will cause a pop-up box to appear.

When we finally found a way to get access to the US version we did manage to make it work. When you point your cursor to a search result a small vertical stripe with a yellow dot appears to the right of the listing. Let your pointer rest on the yellow spot and a text box appears.

The text box includes more text snippets from the page, as well as links to different sections of that page.

This is a useful feature, but we are afraid that many users will not be able to find it. But truth to be told, the Google parallell is also hard to find.

Categorized search

Categorized Search lets you change the way the search engine selects results. Categorized Search may for instance boost the delivery of results from authoritative results to users. Alternatively you may go for diversity.

Bing puts it this way:

“Often results on a page are overinfluenced by search-engine optimization and tend to be of a particular type. Insurance queries, for example, are dominated by rate compare sites and providers rather than articles and other background information. Categorized Search helps circumvent this tendency by showing results in groups that add diversity to a page.”

Unfortunately we were not able to see how this works on the UK version.

Bing says:

“Try it: Enter ‘Hyundai Sonata,’ ‘U2,’ ‘Robbie Williams,’ ‘diabetes,’ ‘Desperate Housewives’ or ‘megamouth shark’ and scroll through the search results. Note how they are categorized into sections. You can expand any of the sections simply by clicking on the header.”

Nope, not on the UK version.

However, on the US version a search for Paul Simon sorted results into biographies, lyrics, albums and merchandise, yeah, wallpapers even.

The feature does help you narrow down your research. It also encourages searchers to go beyond the top results and explore the listings more thoroughly. For search engine marketers this may lead to a change in tactics. Being number one may not be as important as it used to be.

Quick tabs

Nor is the so-called Quick Tabs feature available in Europe.

“Quick Tabs offer easy access to the Web Groups relevant to your search. These tabs put the most common refinements for your query term at the top left of the Explore Pane. (…) Enter a search query of ‘San Francisco,’ which returns a list of results categorized by several Web Groups, including ‘map,’ ‘airport,’ ‘restaurants,’ ‘hotels’ and ‘weather.’ “

We did find them when we gained access to the US version, and the additional links are indeed useful, but why on earth can’t Bing implement this in Europe as well? If I go to San Francisco I will be looking for an American hotel. Give me the same options as the Americans!

Travel search

There is also a separate Travel Search section in the US:

“You can start a search for travel arrangements directly from the Bing Home Page, much the same way you initiated searches for Bing Shopping and Bing Local. Clicking on ‘Travel’ will bring you directly to the Bing Travel Home Page. Across the top of the page are links to ‘Flights,’ ‘Hotels,’ ‘Airfare Deals’ and ‘Destinations.’”

The new Bing is only for Americans

At this point this European reviewer was getting so irritated that he was close to giving up. As I was redirected to the low-quality UK version of Bing, I could not get access to the travel section.

Indeed, Microsoft UK confirms that they are going to develop the new Bing UK for the next six to twelve months, and what we see now is a beta version.

After much hassle I did find a way of getting access to the US site. Go to Bing Search Worldwide and select United States English, and voila, the search history pops up

Seriously, Microsoft, you were on the brink of losing me there, and the first version of this review was definitely colored by my rising blood pressure. On non-US sites, do include a link that leads directly to the US version! Right now you are generating a lot media buzz also outside the US. All those curious visitors will be confused at best when they cannot get the promised tools to work.

Here is a video presentation made by Microsoft: