Is Bing set to break the search monopoly?
In this guest column Paul Sprokkreef asks: is now the perfect time to jump on the Bing bandwagon and succeed with a lower budget?
It was once digital marketing’s unloved child, but now Microsoft’s search engine Bing is attracting a legion of new users in Australia and taking share away from long-time favourite, Google.
Bing’s market share has grown significantly over the past year. As reported by Comscore, figures for September 2015 show that Microsoft sites held a 7.7% share of searches (against Google’s 79.9%) but this had jumped to 10.8% by December 2015.
Sure, these market share figures may still pale in comparison to the goliath that is Google, but the rapid resurgence of Bing after a long time remaining dormant suggests that the monopoly on search could be threatened.
And as much as we all love Google, who doesn’t like a bit of healthy competition?
While I agree there are opportunities it should be noted that the comScore figures quoted reflect the US market only, and not Australia.
The last figure I can recall for Australia was something around a 92% share for Google.
Bing IS actually better to search for porn…
Hi Duncan. The 10.8% marketshare for Bing is solely for Australia as per Comscore qSearch, December 2015.
I wonder if this is something to do with the Bing virus that overtakes people’s computers and forces the browser to be Bing without permission? It is an insidious bug I can’t easily remove, and I’m quite tech savvy. Not sure I like this strategy but can see how it is working for Bing. Anyone else found the same thing? Cheeky really.
Great article Paul! Google for volume, Bing for value – Use the two side by side to balance your paid search strategy and maximise payback. Exciting times indeed, particularly for small business.