Not The Pepsi Challenge But The Bing Challenge

I remember years ago as a teenager, going to the Canadian National Exhibition in Toronto during the late summer. It was a time when Pepsi Cola was doing some major marketing and they instituted the “Take The Pepsi Challenge.” At the Ex, there were tables set up where people could sample a glass of Pepsi and a glass of Coke to take this challenge, to see which one they preferred. You were not told which was which before sipping from each glass, but after sampling, you were asked which one tasted better to you.

Microsoft has initiated their own challenge in an interesting way, although you are not tasting anything. On a website owned by Microsoft, they are asking you to rate Bing’s search results Vs. Google’s. I first learned about the website via the Twitter post made by “Lord Of Seo” when he twitted “People chose Bing nearly 2 to 1 in a blind test. Which will you pick? #bingiton at http://www.bingiton.com/Landingpage.aspx?form=&publ=&crea= …”

People choosing Bing 2:1? Well, I’m not surprised as I myself have begun to prefer Bing results over Google’s for quite some time now. Not only Bing, but also the search results that duckduckgo.com  provide seem more relevant to my search queries.

I thought I’d give it a shot myself and headed over to BingItOn. You’re asked to type in a search query and then select what you think are the best results, five times (each time, using a different search query). You’re also offered the option of rating the results you see as a “Draw.”

In my case, I was not surprised to see that Bing slightly won. I chose the Bing results for three rounds, one round went to Google, and one was a “Draw.” Here’s a screenshot of the results:

As I wrote, I’m not surprised. I personally think Google’s search results have deteriorated drastically in recent months. It seems to me that in all their efforts to get rid of so called “web spam” and their attempts to be everything to everyone, they’ve actually done a worse job at providing good results for what I am looking for. It seems I am not alone in this thinking. In a way, it’s sad for me as I used to love Google. I was rooting them for them and always hoped they would be more successful, and harbouring my own dislike for Microsoft, I never thought I’d see the day when I might begin recommending Microsoft’s  search engine Bing to others.

Interestingly, in looking at quite a number of websites that I monitor Google Analytics for, I’m seeing a higher bounce rate for visitors that are referred to those sites from Google’s SERP’s than those from Bing’s SERP’s. What does that suggest? More study is needed, but it suggests to me that Bing is providing results to its users that are more relevant in the first place. Bing users are liking what they see when they land on web pages to a higher degree than Google users.

Getting back to that “Take The Pepsi Challenge” test – as a teenager I thought I preferred Coca Cola. I have to admit that I was taken aback when I chose Pepsi over Coke, and since then, it’s been what I have purchased when I do want a cola beverage.

Will you take the Bing It On challenge yourself? I’d love to know your results – feel free to post them in the comments below after you head over to Bing It On here.