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Matt Cutts Tweets About Bing

Notices Some Shortcomings in Bing Results

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By · June 3, 2009 · 87 Comments

Everybody’s talking about Bing today since the Microsoft’s new search engine became unexpectedly available on a widescale. That includes Google, and more specifically Matt Cutts.

An interesting conversation took place on Twitter today between Cutts and Betsy of the Bing account. Cutts was apparently doing a little ego searching on Bing and does not appear entirely impressed with the results. SEO Services Group has transcribed the conversation:

 Matt Cutts: Congrats to @bing on the launch! Sad to see this not-so-relevant result at #4 for [matt cutts] though: http://bit.ly/4a8Q1Y

Bing: @mattcutts anytime you want to give feedback to @bing, we’re here. :) I’m sitting with the devs at present. ^betsy

Betsy for Bing Bing: @mattcutts I know you are disappointed in ego search stuff tonight w/ @bing, but try ‘mtv movie awards 2009′ and see what you get. :) ^ba

Matt Cutts: Ouch. The #5 Bing result for [matt cutts] is spammy too: http://bit.ly/B2r5F It’s a YouTube->WordPress autogenerated blog. :(

Matt Cutts: @bing okay. First web result was from 2008 instead of 2009, even with 2009 in query: http://bit.ly/SToK1 . Google nails it.

Matt Cutts: @bing but doesn’t it bother you that [mtv movie awards] on Google gives great news results and 2009 url, but w/Bing I only see 2008, 2007, ?

Movie Awards search on Bing

Bing: @mattcutts Uh – the first answer folks see is the news answer, not what you circled. Apparently twilight won. ^ba

Matt Cutts: @bing by the way, Twilight did rock. I’m not ashamed to say it–glittery vampires rule!! :)

That’s about it for the conversation between the two (so far), but Cutts referenced that number 4 result again later:

Matt Cutts Tweets about Bing

To me, this just looks like Cutts stepping up to market Google in the wake of Bing’s launch. Bing’s getting a lot of attention right now, and it only makes sense that Google would want to make sure they don’t go thinking its better than their own search engine. It’s about protecting the brand.

Whether this is Matt’s intention or not, Cutts pointing out shortcomings in Bing’s search results is going to resonate throughout the industry. He is practically the posterboy for Google, at least among the search and tech savvy crowd.  A lot of people follow Matt Cutts. A lot of people hang nearly everything on what he has to say (search-wise).

Cutts has shed some light on some issues with Bing though. It’s a little early to burn the search engine at the stake. After all, it’s not even supposed to be launched yet, but after trying an ego search for myself (not something I performed in my first Bing runthrough), I am also much happier with Google’s results. By the way, here are some more Bing findings.

What are your thoughts on Bing? How do you like the search engine’s results compared to Google’s? Share your thoughts.

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There are 87 Comments. Add Yours.

  1. Google has been on the top for a long time. It’s refreshing to see something come out that actually can compete. It makes for better search engines all around.

  2. HAHA
    Reply

    Matt Cutts likes Twilight. lol

    Just lost a little respect for him.

  3. Cutts on an ego trip? Why is that so surprising? Cutts has the number one ego in Google, and the way he wrote those tweets it almost seems the was sarcasm mixed in. Makes me so angry the Google thinks they are the “biggest Coca Cola in the desert”. Glad that Google will get more competition!

  4. Um, yeah. Hate to say it but I prefer Google’s results for my name better than Bing. Bing has a lot of really old stuff on it, and it’s kinda weird that 2 different wedding sites occupy 2 of the top spots on the SERP (one of which has no text on it at all, just pics). And a blank IMDB page? Tsk tsk.

    Methinks it’s pretty URL- and title-centric.

    • Chris Crum
      Reply

      There are definitely some odd choices.

  5. KingsAndBetter
    Reply

    I have been using Google for years as my only search engine. Bing is the first search engine I have used that looks and acts different. I still find myself going back to Google for news and timeline searches but that could change once I start using this Bing for some time.

    I thought it was going to be impossible to top Google but Bing might be able to do that! But hey I thought it was going to be impossible to top PS3 but look what Xbox360 did to that. I am waiting to see the extra features that come out for Bing.

  6. srikanth
    Reply

    OK, cutts is ridiculing Bling. That is the first sign of something positive for Bling, that the competition is feeling something. Cutts can be who ever he is, the more tweets he is posting the more arrogant he looks. Google is better, but the transition from Live to Bling got lot better and it will take to fix the quirks of Bling, since it is just released but I am damn sure, Bling will give google run for its money. Larry and Sergey should put Cutts on short leash, coz this taunt-maniac, is not the best ad google can place about itself.

  7. perspective
    Reply

    Bing does provide a fresh contrast to Google. The name is catchy. MS is heading the right direction and yes we do need competition. Some suggestions for MS…

    1. Have a Matt Cutts equivalent but more (not just twitter but a team that responds) Google is known for not having customer service.
    2. Have their spiders really spider an entire site and quickly (at least for higher traffic sites – top 30 or 40% of websites).
    3. Spider new sites faster with some type of service. This allows new companies and ideas to enter the stream of awareness.
    4. Have something equivalent if not better to webmasters with the added dimension of image, video, pod casts, etc. management for indexing.
    5. Have something as good as anlaytics (serves MS and users) – Analytics is so critical to Google’s knowledgebase.
    6. Have something like Yahoo Buzz but in many verticals that can be searched at the meta level – user searches on a category and then is able to see the buzz results. Publishers get to vie for the buzz using not only links but also by displayed by how new or old the site is (old as in the site is mature versus the site is new) so people can explore both main staple sites as well as fresh new sites.
    7. Have weekly Q&A forums to LISTEN
    8. Make sure the top keyword searches are answered well (doesn’t have to be better than G) so as to promote trust.
    9. Allow people to build their own customized search and place them in a “Search Apps Center” that does something like “cool.bing.com” that may search only cool items. Give incentives as well as tools to promote. Community + rewards + innovation when you look outside the box for answers.

  8. I did a search for my self (my own ego search :) and I see that Bing has changed my title tag of my site to read “Visit _____ S Homepage”. That’s crazy, I don’t think that is any help. I wrote my title tag cuz it works, why did they go and alter it? Besides they got it wrong, the did not put the apostrophe s when they wrote ____ S Homepage, it should be ______’s Home page. And again, it’s not a homepage, it’s my business’s website.

    • Chris Crum
      Reply

      Now that’s interesting.

    • Think of all the wasted time for so many SEM/SEO trying to target key-landing pages to have them altered?! That’s insane.

      That defiantly needs to get worked out.

    • I think Bing is pulling titles from DMOZ. Hopefully they support the NOODP Tag.

  9. While Matt Cutts has some valid points, Google is far from perfect. There’s lots of scraper sites and spam sites that continually come up in the Google results every day for countless search phrases.

    I’m sick and tired of Google ignoring spam report submissions and completely failing to even acknowledge my inquiries about some seriously flagrant issues. Matt Cutts won’t even give me the time of day when I attempt to contact him.

    At the same time, Chiropractic Pittsburgh points out a serious issue that I also discovered and wrote about in my initial bing review. If bing is going to decide on their own how to replace a page’s official accurate title that is not good at all.

    But as far as Matt Cutts getting all pious and self-righteous that’s because Google pays him a nice salary to do so. Yet I think it’s laughable that he gets all high and mighty when Google allows sites that use blatant black hat methods to come up on the first page of results. http://bit.ly/SiFYL the first result – I did an expose blog article on that guy and his tactics. Google never responded to spam reports.

    So Matt Cutts – either clean your own side of the street before you slam bing, or shut up about how bad bing is.

  10. Bing looks good.We will only know more as time goes on.There are so much to improve.iam sure they will have a long way to go .

  11. I’ve seen more relevant results from Cuil :D

  12. The Big G needs all the competition it can get, but really, does anyone think Bing can topple or even come close?

    • Guest
      Reply

      Yes. Eventually, it will. We need real competition among the big search engines.

  13. to be pointing out minor issues in a product which is yet to be launched.
    Whatever happened to being a good sport and accepting a fair challenge.

  14. We can’t open bing.com in China, because of the GFW.
    We usually search on baidu or Google.
    I don’t think bing can beat anyone of them.

  15. I did an ego search on “Bystander” on Bing.com, but could not find any mention of my Bystander site. Immediately, I went to Yahoo search and bingo! it was on the first page, and on Google it appeared on the third page. I think I will stick to Yahoo and Google.

    Also, I didn’t see any of the fancy categories and features that Microsoft was harping about, just a single column list of results.

    Did I miss anything?

    • ‘Also, I didn’t see any of the fancy categories and features that Microsoft was harping about, just a single column list of results.’

      If you move the mouse to the right hand side of the entry, a line appears with a yellow dot. Hold the mouse there for a few secs.and a very good summary of the webpage comes up with text taken from the page. It saves a lot of time seaching through pages containing irrelevant information.

  16. hijacked
    Reply

    Bing hijacked my default search in the browser line. I had it set to Google and was perfectly happy with that. Not a big surprize, I expect this from MicroSoft. Thing is I can’t figure out how to reset the browser default search in IE.

  17. Matt is almost correct . My one year old weblog with decent traffic results (for keyword=domain name ) results Cisco.com in Bing search . Oh! wats that??

  18. Prof Abronsius
    Reply

    I check every month the position of several websites for different searches on multiple search engines and I must say that the LiveSearch results were not very relevant. Bing was even worse and provides links to sites that do not correspond to the research.

    It is interesting to see the regularity of the responses of different search engines over time. Google is very linear and update consistently his answers. LiveSearch and Altavista can place a site on the first page a week and relegate it on the 6th page the following week!

  19. az
    Reply

    Bing hijacked my default browser search!!!!!!!

    I WANT MY DEFAULT GOOGLE SEARCH BACK NOW!!!!!!!!!

  20. Hello,

    I must admit, Bing does have some cool features however, the search results are not that accurate. I think Microsoft will gain some more market share if, they market Bing correctly and provide more relevant data.

    • Why is it that I have top 10 rankings for several keyword and keyword phrase searches on Google and Yahoo and yet on the Bing there is nothing in the top 100 and when I do a site: search it only shows 1 entry for two sites that I have and yet Google and Yahoo show several entries for both sites, once again in the top 10.

      Bing may be a new entry for Microsoft but I think it has a long way to go before it becomes a front runner!

      Do a search on “musicals in kent”, “plays in kent” and “kent theatre” on Google, Yahoo and Bing and take a look at the results. Google and Yahoo show http://www.kenttheatre.co.uk in their results but Bing shows nothing!

      I could be questioned for expecting my sites to perform well but taking a look at the results it plain to see either Bing are using a different formula to give different results or they need to sit down and re-think their algorithms.

      Maybe my opinion is bias but none the less I would expect challengers to at least show the same results within their top 100.

      • Guest
        Reply

        Exactly! We have a site which is ranked number 1 for its keywords on Google & Yahoo for 5 years already. Its 10 years old, PR7 site (G), excellent rep, thousands of natural links – where does it rank in Bing?? Not even in top 100 (but they have 55,000 pages indexed). Huh??? I don’t even know where to start …

  21. Bing Search results are a disappointment. Those at the top have worked hard to produce the relevant content to earn these positions. Bing’s results return many site with irrelevant results and no logical reason for being found – at all. While I maintained some of my #1 and front page positioning on the Bing site many sites seem to have floated up from the sandbox. Guess Bing doesn’t have a sandbox – yet.

  22. I don’t know what to think but I noticed a drastic increase in traffic to my sites through search results from Bing. Google has been the “Dictator” for a long time. I think it’s time other top players joined the band wagon. As for the ego search by Cutts, it does not surprise me. In a forum post, somebody used the 4-letter word to describe his ego.

  23. Cutts and his incumbent overlords at skynet are gettin fraid, lol

    Bing is in its first generation, so of course there will be bugs. But anything that pisses off Cutts is good in my book.

    So kudos to the other set of know-it-alls at Microsoft….

    i cant wait to see who dethrones Google

    • … is good in my book too :)
      I preffer yahoo as a SE btw

    • Guest
      Reply

      Ditto

    • TimG
      Reply

      Exactly, Matty boy and google are worried and their response clearly indicates this, I had thought google was untouchable, maybe it’s time for something new? Whats’ with the friggin cat!!

  24. I love this search for non existing sites at most site:.beta

  25. Hey, Bing is new….Give it a chance. Maybe after SP1 or SP2 it will be better off. Hahaha :-)

    • Bing rocks, I can see the concern on the non-MS folks, Microsoft has finally nailed it…I liked Google a lot from the search perspective, I now like bing better than Google.

      Bingooooooooooooooooooooo

  26. Still new, we won’t know what will become of this. Its pretty much the same as Live though.

  27. My site ranks far better on BING than it does with Google. I like it.

    • Guest2
      Reply

      from which do you get the most visits? cause that’s ultimately what matters.

  28. I just searched “first page results” on bing.com I must say this is the smartest engine ever! How did it know how to choose the best organic seo firm? LOL JK and it might just be the results I am seeing.

    I don’t think Google has anything to worry about. I searched a couple of different terms and think Google is Spot on. I do like Bing results vs Yahoo

    Its always nice to see new search technology. Good luck on your new search engine Bing!

  29. Google needs the competition. THey have gotton too big for their britches. A lot of their results in searches yield completely irrelevant results. Most often what I get is yet links to more links to yet more links to yet more links and so on. Only about 1 out of 4 searches do I actually see what I want right on top. Seems to me the only ones successing with Google are hackers, spammers and scam artists.

    Perhaps now Google will be forced to clean up it’s act. Even with Adwords….I am forced to bid against scammers for keywords I should be on top with and when I go to see who is on top with them keywords, they are usually lists of links, link farms or directories as they call themselves. Less than half the time do I find what I want within the first 10 searches. I almost always click down to number 100 or more and find more relevant results there.

  30. We are an Australian company but we host our site in the U.S.
    Bing does not recognize our site as Australian, so our products do well in searches in bing.com BUT not in bing.com.au
    This is a major flaw.
    Google and Yahoo get this right.

    • Guest
      Reply

      Maybe you should fork out the cash and host your site here…

      Telling any search engine that they are flawed is pointless. Would you be saying the same thing if Bing already had 90% market share? My guess is you would pay the 200 odd bucks a year and host in Oz.

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