Sometimes being first doesn’t mean being the best. Though Google is the world’s most popular search engine, and it got a years-long head start on its main competitor, Bing, there are a lot of things that Bing does better than its rival. Whether you use Bing Adwords to promote your company or you simply do a lot of searches in your day-to-day business, you may benefit from switching from Google to Bing.
Here’s a look at 11 ways Bing is superior to Google. We’re not saying you’ll never use Google again, but you may be surprised at how much Bing has evolved.
1. Video Search
Yes, Google owns YouTube, and so you’d expect its video search function to be excellent. However, Bing has a better results page. It gives you thumbnails of up to nine videos on a screen, and when you hover over a video, it enlarges and gives you more detailed information. Google merely spits out a long list of videos that you have to click on to get more information.
2. Music Video Discovery
Bing recently made big changes to its music video discovery system. When you do a search for an artist, a list of their most popular songs and albums come up, making it easy to explore their videos. Google’s music discovery is much more cumbersome.
3. Image Quality
One point Bing has hammered home over the years is the superiority of its image search quality over Google. While companies often make claims that aren’t true, in this case Bing is correct. Its images are brighter and sharper, especially when it comes to faces and bodies.
4. Social Integration
Social media has become increasingly important in search results, and here Bing has a natural advantage over Google. Bing parent company Microsoft smartly made deals with Facebook and Twitter to feature their trending topics on its news page, helping users get a feel for what’s really important to the general public.
5. Rewards
People like free stuff, and when you’re the underdog, you have to offer them free stuff. Bing has a rewards program to help people earn credits toward buying things simply by using Bing rather than Google for their searches.
6. Search Partner Exclusion
There’s nothing worse than having to sort through what seems like a million results in your Search Partner Performance report. Bing will filter out up to 500 irrelevant or unhelpful sites that you don’t want to waste time and money targeting.
7. Easier Ad Check-Ins
Google could be more user-friendly when it comes to checking up on your ads that are already running. Bing offers a way to filter by campaigns or ad groups to see how your advertisement is doing. Use the Bing Ads Campaign Analytics to enable conversation tracking.
8. Negative Keyword Conflict Reports
There’s such a thing as using too many negative keywords, and it can be easy to overlook when you’re busy putting together your campaign. Bing’s report helps ensure that you haven’t banned yourself right out of any relevant search returns.
9. Local Search
Google has made progress on its local search, but Bing is still stronger in this area. It’s easy to claim and edit your local business, and there is a lot you can do to personalize your listing to make it stand out.
10. Pricing
Of course, you get what you pay for, but if you’re looking to run a cheaper campaign, Bing can do it for you a lot better than Google.
11. Integrate with Operating Systems
You may be thinking to yourself, “Well, of course Bing will integrate with Windows, it’s a Microsoft product.” However, Apple recently made an announcement that gives Bing a big leg up on Google: Apple will now integrate Bing as its spotlight search provider on its iOS, rather than Google.
Image by Manuel Iglesias