There is still a lot to learn about Bing of course. Microsoft’s new search engine hasn’t been live that long. After reading the back and forth of Matt Cutts and Bing, I started wondering how Bing and Google were treating each other’s results.
Come to find out, that if you search Google (or other search engines) on Bing, you typically get a single “best match” result, with sub-results underneath it. You then get a link that says “search for other results containing…” When you click on that link, you get a regular SERP. Perhaps even more interesting, underneath the sub-results, there is a search box that lets you search using Google (or whatever search engine the query was for…yahoo, ask, etc.).
Now the results from a search with that box aren’t displayed within Bing. I doubt they could get away with that. Although they do allow you to play videos from within a video search results page with a simple mouseover.
I do find it somewhat interesting that they are making it easier for users to search with their competitors’ search engines by providing the search box right in the SERP. It is perhaps fitting though, considering “Google” was the most-searched term on Microsoft’s Live Search.
It’s not just queries for search engines that give you the one-result-SERP, though. Social networks appear to do the same, though not all of them. Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, and Bebo all do it, but Twitter gives you a full-blow SERP.
There are variations on the formula too. A query for MySpace will give you the one-result-SERP, and a searchable box, just like the search engine queries, but Facebook doesn’t deliver the search box, but instead a customer support phone number. Twitter doesn’t deliver the one-result-SERP, but still includes the searchable box in the top result.
On a sidenote, Bing has some major relevancy issues with video search (at least with a query for Google or Yahoo). On the first SERP here, I’m only seeing one result that has anything to do with Google whatsoever, apart from the fact that every video on the SERP comes from Google-owned YouTube. I mean seriously…the second result is a Britney Spears video. A Yahoo search brings up nothing about Yahoo, but a bunch of results from Yahoo.
Yahoo
Make of all of this what you will. There are still no doubt plenty of tweaks to be made. After all, Bing isn’t even supposed to be launched yet.
