In an official Bing blog post, Microsoft revealed that the company recently had an independent research company (Answers Research) conduct a blind test regarding search engine choice. The results? People prefer Bing over Google, yet again.
“Previously, we let participants choose their own queries to make it feel as natural as possible. But that raised the question “what if people are just searching for really weird things, instead of searching like they normally do?” To address that, we’ve done a fresh study with a new twist,” Microsoft stated in an official blog post.
The study sample included approximately 1,000 people, ages 18 and older, from across the United States and had no idea that Bing and Google were specifically being tested. The study sample had no idea that Microsoft was behind the study. Microsoft even removed all of the search engine features and simply left the web results pane only. The study sample would then select a query, see results side-by-side, and pick a winner or declare a tie. This would be done ten times and a sum for overall preference would be determined. The results? The study sample preferred Bing (52%) over Google (36%) based on pure web results, with no ads or no extra features displayed. 12% of the sample had a tie between Google and Bing. The whole point behind this study? Microsoft is “investigating just how good our search quality is.”
