Blowing out the candles on Bing's 5th birthday: How's it growing up?

Perhaps best compared to Britain’s Liberal Democrats, Bing is often cited as Google’s lesser known alternative. However, the search engine poses the “strongest” real threat to Google’s towering dominance and seems to be creating waves on the web and mobile and is winning support – perhaps dissimilar to poor Clegg’s recent results.

On the fifth birthday of Google’s “strongest” threat – how is the alternative search engine performing?  And what impact is the colourful engine having on the digital space?

We have a look back over the search engines short life to see what it has done to revolutionise the search market.

2009 – A Bing is born 

Launching itself as a “decision engine” aiming to provide “customers with intelligent search tools to help them simplify tasks and make more informed decisions,” Bing was a welcome shake-up to a market previously synonymous with one word – Google. 

Writing in a blog post to commemorate its birthday, Bing said that in 2009 it was clear that people needed an engine with “more than a list of ten blue links”

Bing was largely focused on creating a user-friendly search engine that organised information in a way that allowed easy navigation. First they introduced Health and Travel verticals in 2009 as each had very particular vocabularies associated with them. Additionally, they began using left rail categories, which allowed users to filter results based on intent.

2010 – A social change 

“In 2010, it was beyond dispute that social data was defining a new fabric for the Web,” commented Bing, who realised the strength of digital impressions social tools were creating on the web. Bing formed partnerships with platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which were instrumental in allowing them to index and identify these connections and interactions.

2011 – Getting mobile

2011 signaled the year that consumption really started to get mobile. Bing realised the importance of optimising for tablets and mobile accessibility. Bing quickly saw the need for creating applications (e.g., Bing for iPad) that were optimised for touch screens and were visually rich to appeal to mobile users.

2012 – Incorporating social and search

“2012 was a watershed year for the Web. The sheer weight of social and multimedia data coursing through the Web made traditional results unwieldy,” explains Bing. The maturing newcomer saw an opportunity to rethink how search could provide more value.

They introduced a 3-column format that showed you what the web knew, what Bing knew, and what people knew about your query.

2013 – Digital intelligence

Bing credits its early investments in its “knowledge repository” for making a fully comprehensive network of information, opinion and commentary.

“It was the first time that a large commercial system actually understood its place in the world and was able to understand that “Chrysler Building” wasn’t just text on a page, but a thing that had windows, floors, and offices. Something that will ultimately make search more of an always-on assistant rather than just an occasional helper.”

2014 – In the now

Bing endeavors to be “a truly personal assistant that can accomplish things in conjunction with you and or on your behalf – without even having to ask” whilst focusing on powering Siri and Spotlight in the new OSX to help find answers.

Bing’s Impact 

“For one thing, as Bing struggles on in its seemingly impossible quest to steal share from Google, it still feels incongruous to be offering pitying encouragements to a company as vast as Microsoft,” writes Ed Ling, chief media officer at DigitasLBi.

“But still, just as it did five years ago, the advertising world needs Bing to provide the strongest possible competition for Google, for the sake of inventory, fresh options, outsider creativity,” adds Ling.

However, Bing is still a long, long way behind Google in terms of market share. According to market research from ComScore issued in April Google has a 67.6% search engine market share in April in the United States, with Bing gaining 18.7%.

Netmarketshare’s May figures don’t look so healthy for Bing either. It gives Google a 68.69% desktop market share against Bing’s 6.22%. For mobile devices, the chasm widens even more with Google gaining a 91.92% market share versus Bing’s 2.25%.

What’s certain is that Bing has a long way to go to challenge Google’s dominance. But hats off to you Bing, you’re looking prettier than ever on your 5th birthday.