“Bing It On” Challenge a Major Success, says Microsoft

A little under a month ago, Microsoft issued a challenge to search users everywhere in the form of “Bing it On”, a promotion that asked people to compare the search results provided by Bing and Google for the same queries and determine which ones were better. According to a post yesterday on the official Bing Search Blog, “Bing it On” was a great success that convinced many Google devotees to use Microsoft’s search engine more regularly. Although there’s little doubt that Google will remain king of search for the foreseeable future, there’s no doubt at all that Microsoft is very happy with its recent promotion.

Interesting Statistics from the “Bing It On” Challenge

To learn more about how people reacted to “Bing It On,” Microsoft hired Answers Research, and independent research company, to use online questionnaires to survey just over 4,700 individuals who took Microsoft’s challenge. The survey revealed some interesting statistics:

• 64% were “surprised by the quality of Bing’s web search results”
• Over 50% said their “impression of Bing improved” after seeing its search results directly alongside those of Google
• 33% of those who said they primarily used Google mentioned that they’d “use Bing more often” after completing the “Bing It On” Challenge
• 17% of those who preferred Bing to Google said that the Challenge “revealed flaws in Google’s results”

Keeping Expectations Realistic

Microsoft understands that one promotion won’t be enough to suddenly take over Google’s huge slice of overall search market share, admitting that “the ‘Google Habit’ is strong in many people and habits don’t change overnight.”

At the same time, they said they’re working hard to continually improve search results in Bing and create additional distinctions between their search engine and the competition, and that “Bing It On” is only the beginning.

If you have yet to try “Bing It On,” you can join the 5 million individuals who already have by clicking here.