bing-logoThe release of Microsoft’s new search engine, Bing on June 3 was relatively quiet compared to the hype that surrounded such events like the WWDC. Surprisingly, however, Bing’s progress has been closely monitored and commented on, and the internet inundated by tech blogs reviewing the three giants. Not to be left out, TechMiso is joining the fray with it’s very own review performed by someone whose job it is to regularly scour the internet for information that doesn’t always seem to be there. Trust me, it’s sort of like mining for gold.

Basic Search

I started with a basic and easy search term (McDonald’s), followed by a basic but not quite as easy search term (United Nations), and finished off with a very difficult search term (”Haslina Ali”). The results were interesting as below:

Results1

Bing showed utter focus, displaying purely McDonald’s websites from various countries, while Google gave surprisingly low returns in numbers. Google, however, outshone in the other search terms while Bing only listed the actual United Nations website as the 3rd result.

News and Image Searches

Despite being new, Bing also provides image and news searches, allowing us the joy of adding that to the comparison criteria.

Results2For the news search, Google got the best rating mostly because Bing and Yahoo only gave me returns from the Philippines despite me not being located in the Philippines (they both detected that I’m in Malaysia).

Blind Search

Results3Luckily, the internet was able to provide us with a Blind Search medium, to prevent unbiased decisions. 3 random search terms provided the following results.

The Decision

Google has proven to be the strongest player in all 3 criteria, giving better and more relevant results. Its news search has a cool feature that provides a timeline for news results. Its image search has a great feature that allows you to specify what color picture you want.

Bing and Yahoo proved not to be slouches, either, and while not returning the best results, also had other cool features. Bing gives you a summary of the website if you scroll over it along with a list of other items on the page, and the image search has a very user-friendly search settings sidebar. Yahoo has a great news database due to Yahoo! News, and provides a ‘Related Concepts’ bar at the top whenever you search for something.

Though it’s still a baby, Bing has shown that it has great potential and we look forward to how it develops.