Bing: Study Finds Ad Advantage, But no Google Killer

According to a recent report, Microsoft's search engine 'Bing' may be better designed for incorporating advertising than Google. The news comes amidst suggestions that the site's early success was merely the result of short term curiosity on the part of web users.

Small Sample, Encouraging Results

The ad research comes from User Centric, a Chicago-based firm which specializes in the way people interact with computers. It asked 21 people to carry out four searches both Google and Microsoft, then used eye tracking technology to see what they actually looked at.

The research found that, on average, people spent the same amount of time looking at the main results list on both sites -- just seven seconds. The results were also similar for sponsored results (that is, ads related to the search term) at the top of the page, though these attracted more attention when people were trying to carry out a transaction such as booking a flight rather than searching for information.

Bing Advertisers Benefit from New Layout

However, sponsored results on the right of the page attracted the attention of 42% of Bing searchers compared with 25% on Google. The research also found users were much more likely to see Bing's list of related search terms, listed on the left, than that of Google, listed at the bottom of the page.

That's good news for Bing advertisers, as it increases the chances of users picking a term that better matches what they were searching for, and thus getting more relevant ads. That in turn is good news for Microsoft as, with little hope of competing with Google's sheer number of users any time soon, it needs to sell Bing as a more effective outlet for advertising.

The study also found that Bing's system of allowing users to refine results by customized categories, which relate to the particular subject being searched for, is not going unnoticed. Half of the participants looked at the list of categories and one in seven went on to use the feature. (Source: usercentric.com)

Bing: Minimal Impact on Google

It's not all good news for Microsoft, though. An Internet usage tracking firm reports that, despite Bing getting decent traffic since its launch, there's been no noticeable effect on Google's traffic levels, suggesting people don't yet see Bing as a replacement. (Source: paidcontent.org)

The figures also show the average number of searches per user is much lower with Bing -- and dropping. That may well mean people are simply trying it out rather than using it as a primary search tool.