Yesterday, we reported on a study appearing on the “Freakonomics” blog that disputed the “Bing It On” claim that people prefer Bing to Google in a blind comparison of search results. Study author Ian Ayers sought to replicate the Bing It On challenge methodology and argued that Bing’s claims were false and its messaging deceptive.
Bing pushed back hard yesterday in several ways. There was a lengthy point by point refutation of the Ayers report in comments posted to the story I wrote at Search Engine Land from Matt Wallaert, behavioral scientist at Bing. Wallaert also responded to a similar story about the Ayers study at at Search Engine Roundtable.
Microsoft later issued a formal statement from Wallaert:
Later in the day there was a blog post from Microsoft about the Ayers study. It echoed the points made by Wallaert in his comments to the blog posts. Below is most of the Wallaert post:
Google’s Matt Cutts reacted to Ayers study on Google+:
Regardless of whether Bing or its critics are right about whose study methodology is more flawed, the thing that was most interesting to me about the Ayers findings was the fact that Bing won 41 percent of the time. That suggests, in the context of an arguably antagonistic study, Bing did very well and is almost at parity with Google.
It would also seem to support what Microsoft has been claiming — that the Google brand and not necessarily search quality is now what sustains Google’s dominance in search.
Contributing authors are invited to create content for Search Engine Land and are chosen for their expertise and contribution to the search community. Our contributors work under the oversight of the editorial staff and contributions are checked for quality and relevance to our readers. The opinions they express are their own.
