Bing vs Google: The Boxing Match
Which one should we root for? Neither, says Adam Sponder
Looking at the history of any household name in any industry, it can be safely said that no large company has a truly spotless reputation. This phenomenon is a product of our capitalist system: entrepreneurs are invariably forced to sacrifice a certain element of integrity in order to attain success. Upon doing so, the option to 'give back' to the world at large is put on the table – often, it is those who are recession-proof that are most prone to engage in fits of altruism. It is human nature at its finest to be 'good' when times are good and 'bad' when times are bad.
The search engine market is no exception to this cardinal rule, and two of its most notorious search engines are prime examples of this 'two-faced' behavior: both Google Co. and Microsoft (known in this field for introducing Bing, innovative or a me-too product depending on taste) began their natural lives having to cut a number of – hopefully – proverbial throats before establishing themselves to the extent that they could claim a moral high ground. The incident most clearly indicative of this mindset is unfolding even now, as the Google-Bing war escalates into a fit of name-calling, upset, and (figurative) pacifier-throwing.
For all those not in the know, the aforementioned war – fought not in the battlefield but through the mediums of social networking, blog posts, and often-biased articles – began when Google first observed that Bing was returning search results unusually similar to its own, particularly for certain, long-tail queries. This is not to say that Google's results became Bing's overnight, or that their new results were necessarily better than what they had before, but to affirm that Bing's portfolio suddenly and without warning began to appear more “Google-like.”
This would soon become a pair of stains on Microsoft's record – not only was this change grounds for accusations of foul-play, but it acted to deprive the SEO field itself of quality search results; Bing's supposed reason for existence is to provide the web with a new series of search results, not to become a second Google and therefore redundant. Google, not willing to take this gesture – be it a threat or an insult – lying down, pledged to catch Bing in the act of plagiarism.
In a move called with equal frequency 'genius' and 'infantile', Google set up what is now referred to as a sting operation: they picked out a group of extremely unpopular key combinations that no one tended to search for, and manually forced a group of pages completely unrelated to the search terms to appear 'relevant' under the input bar. Google then gave a group of twenty or so employees new laptops with Bing's toolbar installed (Google's theory on Microsoft's means of data gathering) and had them each search these, nonsense terms. With that, a new group of long-tail keywords with completely unsuited results appeared on Google, and – sure enough – 7 or 8 of the terms, complete with bogus results, quickly appeared on Bing.
When later questioned about the matter, Bing admitted that their toolbar did collect user data, but contested the alleged 'unfairness' of the move: according to them, it is perfectly fair to modify their results based upon user – and not competitor – behavior, and Google is pitching a fit over nothing but an ingenious move. Seeing as Google is – as previously touched upon – not the moral authority it likes to say it is, any professed outrage they feel is hard to take seriously. This doubt has led many to consider Bing's move as not the only shrewd act in this war – many have expressed that Google is likely playing on public sympathy more than anything else.
So to speak, this quarrel has a lot in common with a boxing match--both companies are throwing veiled, and sometimes blatant, jabs at the other's integrity, because Bing is in many ways as outraged about Google's little experiment as Google is outraged about Bing's search refinement methods. The public is simply outraged. Some feel that Bing is cribbing off of Google's notes, while others insist that Google has infringed upon their oath never to tamper directly with their search results over the course of... 'stinging' Bing.
What is another situation in which two fighters exchange jabs, are often accused of cheating (in the form of steroids), and are expected to compete with each other, sometimes brutally? That's right, a boxing match. What can be taken away from this analogy is the reaction the public should probably consider: whether or not these companies are in the wrong now, both certainly have been in the past and have no room to proclaim their innocence. What is more, there is little point in trying to figure out who is 'cheating' at the moment, because both are behaving insufferably badly anyway – there are few good reasons to take this fracas public or to perpetuate it further.
When a boxing match starts, no one blames a fighter for throwing the first punch. The same attitude can apply here – the current situation is nothing more than a punch in and of itself, one drop among a pool of enmity. Why does it deserve special attention, and why should either of these companies be excused for the frankly childish dirt-throwing war that both are engaged in at present? Answer either of these questions and perhaps one has a basis for involvement in this issue. If one can't, then one should turn the other cheek and save one's rancor for a real issue. Let Google and Microsoft speak to us through the products they produce. Let that be the means by which the world decides which one should prevail.
Adam Sponder is an industry and technology writer for CorporatePA.com
