Comparing Google to Bing

Microsoft much-discussed distrust of the crowd seems to persist. Rod Holmes asks in this post, “Is Bing Censoring Questions About Microsoft?”

Holmes compares a number of negatively slanted search results about Microsoft and Google in both the Google search engine, um, “Google,” and Microsfot’s new search tool “Bing.” He reports that while Google shows a mix of results on each, Bing seems to eliminate negative Microsoft results from heavy-hitting sites that could be taken more seriously.

The poster had searched for “why is microsoft word so expensive?” in both Google and Bing. The results were strikingly different. Google’s first two results were clearly web pages discussing that very question: one on MacRumors.com and the other on Ibibo.com. A look at Bing made me scratch my head…just as the post had intended. It’s first response was to the question, “Why is Manhattan so expensive?” If, in Bing’s algorithm, “microsoft” is the same as “manhattan” I think they need to check their programming. The second and third results were about the differences between various versions of Word. РHolmes