Microsoft’s Bing search engine has been gaining significant momentum in the past month after the highly successful ‘Bing it on’ campaign.
The campaign allowed users to compare Bing’s organic search results with Google’s to see which they preferred. With over 5 million people taking on the challenge, there have been some surprising results.
Answer Research surveyed 4,700 people’s ‘Bing it on’ experience and showed that 64% of people were surprised at the quality of the search engine’s organic results, and with 50% of the study claiming the results seemed surprising when compared to Google’s results.
In many ways the most important statistic to come out of the research was that 33% of people who considered themselves loyal, dyed-in-the-wool Google users will now be more likely to use Bing in their everyday search activities.
Of course, these statistics represent a minute proportion of internet users, but the fact that feedback has been so positive is a sign of softening attitudes to a search engine that many viewed as an inconvenient intrusion by Microsoft into their search habits.
After last week’s scathing attack on Google over the tracking of safari users that resulted in a record $22.4 fine from the American Federal Trade Commission, will Bing see a significant growth in a search market share that has grown steadily to the autumn of 2010 but has hovered around the 8-10% mark ever since.