Binging and Googling Myself

As many of you may know, Microsoft just came out with Bing, it's new search engine that is positioned to rival Google.

And what was the first thing I thought to do with these two mega-power search engines? I'm shameless. I just Binged and Googled myself to see which one has the better search results. Let's compare, shall we?

Number of Search Results

Google retrieved 397,000 Search Results, while Bing somehow managed to pull out 762,000 Search Results... hmmm. Somehow, I doubt they're all about me.

- Bing wins Round 1!

Timing

Google performed the search in 0.40 seconds, while on the other hand Bing didn't even tell me how long it took. In the broad scheme of things, I guess I don't even care, but it would be nice to have that extra piece of information for shock value!

- Google wins Round 2!

Quality of Search Results

I've always loved Google's ranking system. They never let two of the same domain name enter the first page. If they do, one of them is listed as a sub-category of the other. HOWEVER, Bing allowed two Twitter pages onto my front page. One is my Twitter account, and the other is a tweet that I wrote about Hillary Clinton speaking at my graduation. Bing also let two Brandstorm Community webpages up on the first page. Tsk tsk, Bing! What are you doing over there?!?!?

- Google wins Round 3!

Number of Options

So, this battle is all about who has the most options on their page. Google has a TON of applications and tabs at the top of their page that people use every day, which include Maps, Images, Video, News, Shopping, Gmail and More.

Let's see what Bing has.... At the top of their page, they have Images, Videos, Shopping, Maps, MSN, Windows Live and More.

Great try, Bing, but Google is the king of Apps.

- Google wins Round 4!

Name

Ok, so far Google is kicking Bing's ass, but who will win the Battle of the Domain Names?

Google is a clever name. "Google" is derived from googol, which is 10¹⁰⁰, that is, the digit 1 followed by one hundred zeros (in decimal representation). This is a great name choice for a search engine, as it implies that it retrieves a very large number of results.

And, so what does Bing mean? According to dictionary.com, it means "a heap or pile". I see where they are going with that. It also is a type of cherry. And it also means "to go". When I think of Mandarin Chinese, I think of the word "ice", pronounced as bing. Hmmm... but somehow, I'm not buying it. Especially when you write it as a verb: Binging. It reminds me of binge drinking and bulimia (binge eating and purging).... ICK!

Plus, there are already a lot of social networking sites out there with similar names, such as Ning and Ping. But there are other similar onomotopaeia-ish names, such as Boing boing, Blurb, Bonzo, Badoo, Blip, and Bebo. Very unoriginal and not well thought-out, Microsoft. And kudos to Google for the creativity.

- Google wins Round 5!

Overall, it's Google at 4 and bing at 1. Google is the champion here, and it seems that the only edge that Bing has over Google is the number of results returned. But, peeps, it's QUALITY OVER QUANTITY!

Check out the screenshots from my vain Binging/Googling session!

Above: Googling results for "erica swallow"

Above: Binging results for "erica swallow"