But in the late 90s, one search engine came along to wipe everyone else off the map. Only a few Google competitors remain, and even today, Google holds a whopping 76 percent market share, followed by China’s Baidu at a meager 15 percent. Microsoft is no slouch when it comes to popularity, but the company’s search engine, Bing, still struggles to gain even a small fraction of Google’s popularity. Bing has a 4 percent market share, beating only little-used search engines like Yahoo and Ask. But you don’t have to succumb to peer pressure when conducting a web search. In fact, you may find some of the following reasons make Bing a better choice for your own search needs.
Keep Up With News
Google has always thrived on keeping its search page as clean and simple as possible. Bing has that, too, but scroll down a little and you can see the latest news, as well as some interesting places to visit and This Day in History. If you’re always looking for eye-catching photos, you’ll also love the Image of the Day just below the day’s news. At the top of the screen, you’ll be invited to go straight to images, videos, maps, and news.
Image Search
There’s a reason Bing puts an Image of the Day on its main search page. Image search is something Bing has traditionally done much better than Google, although Google has boosted its image search in recent years. The filters still make Bing’s search stand out, though. Instead of exhaustively looking for a photo to meet your needs, you can filter by size, color, file type, shape, date posted and license.
A Different Engine Means Different Results
Businesses spend a great deal of time and money trying to figure out how to optimize their content for Google’s picky algorithms. Although Bing also designs its algorithms to make sure search results are as useful as possible, the setup is different, which means when you search for something on Google, you’ll get a separate set of results than you will with Bing. If you don’t find the answer you’re looking for with Google, shifting over to Bing can help you broaden your approach. Google also uses personalization to come up with your results, so Bing can be a quick workaround for that.
Search Shortcuts
When you input a general search string in Bing, you have an extra opportunity to narrow things down. Above your results, Bing will ask what, specifically, you want to learn about the topic. You can find search suggestions at the bottom of Google’s first page of results, but you’ll have to scroll down for those. Having it at the top of the page could save you time. Although Bing has long lived in Google’s gigantic shadow, the search engine still has plenty of fans. You can use Bing as an alternative to Google or any other search engine, or you can choose to use it as your primary. If you find you prefer Bing to Google, setting it as your default search engine is easy enough that you can ditch Google for good.
