05

Jun

Don’t Google it, Bing it: Microsoft May Be Changing the Game of Online Marketing

Posted by: Jeremy Reither

Google may be the 800 pound gorilla in the search market right now, but there’s a new prodigy in town. The current king of all search engines handles about a quarter billion searches per day, and for the vast majority of those, it does its job well: it delivers relevant search results, quickly, and in a intuitive layout, but that hasn’t kept Yahoo, Microsoft, Ask and others from trying to do some or all of those things better. That’s as clear as ever since Microsoft rolled out what looks to be a real contender in the search space…called Bing. If early reports are any indication, this could mean significant strategic changes (and opportunities) for business marketing themselves online.

Nobody is suggesting that anyone is going to knock Google off its throne any time soon – it’s got to knock Yahoo out of the #2 spot first. Uh, wait, it already did…for a day. Since Bing is replacing Microsoft’s previous search engine (Live), it’s not exactly starting from scratch. Live’s 7% share of the search market is now Bing’s, which gives Bing a bit of a running start. Add to that all the fanfare surrounding Bing’s launch, and it actually surpassed Yahoo to take over the #2 spot for a day earlier this month.

So, why should you care?

For years businesses marketing themselves online have really only focused on “the rule of Google.” In other words, when you built a new website, you did it with Google’s guidelines in mind. Yahoo and MSN – afterthoughts. When you launched a new pay-per-click (PPC) marketing campaign, you did it on Google’s AdWords system first. Yahoo and MSN – maybe later. A true challenger to Google would change the way businesses are marketed online. It would add complexity, as search engine marketers try to abide by the guidelines of two major search engines; and it could also create opportunity for those looking to launch more cost effective PPC campaigns.

The big “if” is about whether Bing can live up to the hype. Microsoft, despite its deep pockets, has a history of hits and misses. But early reports indicate that it may have a winner with Bing. And well, just like Google, you can use Bing as a verb, too.