So guess what – Microsoft is making another run at the search engine industry with its latest product called Bing.
Bing – as in “Bing, and decide”.
Microsoft wants us to make sure that we aren’t confusing Bing with a regular old search engine. No, Bing is a decision engine, says Microsoft.
So where does that leave SEO with Bing? Google is famous for implementing algorithm changes that affect search engine placements – are we going to have to scramble to keep up with this new decision engine?
Yes and no.
MSN and Live Search certainly have an impact in the search engine industry, but not a huge one. Google is the clear king, and even Yahoo currently holds a large edge over Microsoft.
Microsoft has been attempting to buy Yahoo, or at least a part of it, for a while now. They made an offer of $31/share over a year ago, which CEO Jerry Yang turned down.
Yang is now gone as CEO and some of the shareholders of Yahoo (particularly Carl Icahn) are looking at their current $15/share and wondering what could have been. Icahn did end his proxy fight with Yahoo and he is now a member of the board, but it must smart a little bit knowing how much market value has vanished.
Around the same, in August 2008, Microsoft acquired the semantic search engine provider Powerset. They had a technology that attempted to understand the full meaning of the phrases people were typing into the search query.
There has been a lot of speculation that Microsoft is using Bing as a re-branding effort for its Live Search. Microsoft desperately wants and needs to sink its teeth into Google’s market share, but is simply re-branding their search engine going to do the trick?
Well now that Bing is live and we’ve had a chance to play with the new “decision engine”, I think it’s safe to say Google’s market share is probably secure.
Bing has a fun new name, a sleek-looking front page and it appears to index sites at a pretty rapid rate. It can’t hurt to pay attention to what works on Bing and what doesn’t – but don’t sacrifice your ranks on Google and Yahoo for it.
We already know that not all sites rank equally across the various search engines. Bing could turn out to be the next big search engine that we need to focus on as SEOs.
Or…
Microsoft hasn’t gotten where it is by always playing catch-up. When they see something they like, they find a way to buy it, or they do you one-better.
A re-branded Live Search is really going to have to kick up the WOW-factor to gain any market share against Google and Yahoo.
Perhaps one of these two things could be happening here.
I suspect Microsoft would still like to make Yahoo’s search engine its own. Yahoo is the only real competitor to Google, and even that is a stretch to say.
Nonetheless, attaining Yahoo’s 20-ish percent of the search engine market would help Microsoft quickly make up some ground.
Will Yahoo sell?
They very well might if they think Microsoft is coming out with something bigger and better. Why not lock in some financial gains while you can than risk losing market share to the new up and comer?
Maybe they won’t. Cuil was supposed to be the big, bad Google killer and they have flopped. But Cuil isn’t Microsoft and they don’t have the deep pockets the Redmond-based company does.
When Microsoft starts making moves like this with Bing, they may push Yahoo back into negotiations.
Granted, Microsoft isn’t about to admit this could be their plan. Admitting they were still interested in Yahoo, or even parts of Yahoo, would only drive the share price up and end up costing Microsoft more for the purchase.
On the other hand, by feigning a brand new, revitalized decision engine like Bing, Microsoft may knock Yahoo down a peg and force it into selling.
Globally, Yahoo has some 70 partnerships with mobile companies, making it the “default” search engine for roughly 850 million cell phone users. That alone would make a tasty treat for Microsoft to swallow.
Or perhaps Microsoft is looking beyond a mere search engine and it wants to one-up Google.
There’s no doubt about the future role and importance cloud computing will play in business and personal use.
Google has done quite well with its software as a service (SaaS); implementing Google Talk, Google Docs etc on its iGoogle.
Maybe Microsoft is looking for a way to move its next-generation operating system into cyberspace and Bing is simply the first step.
If Microsoft wants to create a full-blown virtual OS, complete with a built-in semantic search, a wiki, a photo/file management system, a voice and video communication system etc, they probably would enjoy some real success against Google. This is purely speculation on my part.
For now we’ll just have to make due with poking around the new Bing decision engine and tinker with our SEO efforts to see what works.
By: Zack S.
