Are Bing searchers smarter than Google searchers?

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When I have Internet Explorer open, I use their embedded Search box to quickly find what I’m after.

Before I even finish typing, it’s often interesting to see what the search engines predict I’m searching for.

It’s quite an innovation to provide new web searchers with insights of what previous searchers were looking for.

Well, sometimes it’s helpful. Sometimes it’s a little worrying what gets submitted from the wisdom of crowds:

 

I have Google and Bing both available.

I thought it’d be interesting to see how they compare. Or should I say, how their respective search users compare – particularly, which side are asking dumber questions.

My comprehensive, objective analysis follows.

 

Exhibit A: What is…?

Of particular concern, Bing users asking “what is the time”. Is there any internet searching device without a visible clock? Or perhaps users know their time’s wrong, and this is the way kids today find the correct time. Or an abbreviated search to find time conversion sites? (I’m still concerned.)

Google searching overall here looks a bit like soul searching. It could be the start to the most obscure joke in history (which I don’t know the answer to):

Q: What do scientology, gypsy, love, and the illuminati have in common?

 

Exhibit B: Difference between …?

The stark difference I see is that Bing searchers look quite nerdy focusing on HD, smart phones, laptops, & economics. Googlers on the other hand are interested in food and alcohol nuances.

 

Exhibit C: Proof that…?

I found these common searches interesting. It seems people everywhere put their searches of the world wide web of information to good use, seeking proof of God and Jesus. In addition to this, Googlers seem to cast a wider net than Bing users to check on not only aliens and ghosts, but also vampires and mermaids.

And Google is suggesting that many people are still researching whether news of rapper Tupac’s death is greatly exaggerated or not. On this point, it seems there’s a glass half-full / half-empty thing going on. Surprisingly, the most popular “proof that” search overall is whether Tupac is alive. Then even more surprisingly, also in the list in sixth place is the query for “proof that tupac is dead”

 

Conclusion:

I think the analysis is inconclusive to say whether one group of search users are smarter than the other – dangit.

However, it does seems to me Googlers are asking a greater variety of interesting questions.

If I find any other interesting search suggestions in my travels I’ll post some more.

 

An update:
It’s interesting, and by total coincidence, just today The New York Times tweeted a link to an article they published on Bing/Google web search auto complete / auto suggest:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/11/22/technology/in-search-engine-results-a-peek-at-what-we-wonder.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&hp

Google suggestions

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Prolific Tweeter @Stephen Fry tweeted a link to the Google Blacklist. It’s supposedly a list of words where Google does not suggest the rest of the search in order to avoid offending anybody.  It relates to Google Instant which works by anticipating your search as you type each letter and giving the remainder of potential phrases to you as a possible link.  From processing 400 million queries per day, it usually has a pretty good idea of what you could be after.

Going through the list is slightly amusing.  But perhaps it’s more alarming how much time people have devoted to searching on rude words to work out if Google will keep quiet on the subject matter or not.

I thought it was interesting to also see Google take quite an innocent search into a totally inappropriate direction.
 
Earlier in the week I wanted to know if hummus (the Middle Eastern chick pea foodstuff) was healthy.  That was before I knew how to spell hummus.
 
Typing just “Is homo” to search on threw up 10 queries about homosexuality I never considered.

Some time ago I also found that typing a simple “How to” into Google would have some strange suggestions around -making babies -french kiss, and so on.. but checking this out now, it seems they’ve vetted the suggestions more sensibly.