Bing's Early Lead Over Yahoo Not End of Race

After two days of Bing being launched, Bing.com is already the No. 2 search engine in the US and worldwide, with 16.28% share of the market. Bing is Microsoft's new search engine that they have launched to compete with Yahoo, Google, and the other search engines. CEO, Steve Ballmer's goal was to be the #2 search engine within five years, and if this is any indication, Microsoft may reach this goal sooner than later. The primary thought though is that the hype may be based on the the initial "novelty and promotion" of Bing. So, will Bing.com be able to continue the high traffic volume, or not? Sure, they have become the #2 search engine very quickly, but it will be much more difficult to maintain this, as many have been using Yahoo for a long time.

The company is promoting the engine in a different way that Google promotes their search engine, with a stronger focus on helping people better organize search information, and also to help people find what they're looking for more quickly. Microsoft is throwing between $80 and $100 million into the new marketing campaign, so the initial interest and buzz could be just that, and may not last.

It also seems as though Bing may be a greater threat to Yahoo than it is to google due to the nature of the engine. Yahoo has always been the type of search engine that organizes search results based on past results and what others have found helpful. The article refers to this as the "concierge" approach. This is the same approach that Bing is taking. Their primary focus is to let the consumer know that with Bing, you can get your search results much more quickly and easily. The difference between this and Google's approach is that Google's is a more simple approach that doesn't focus as strongly on finding the most popular result.

Regardless, for Bing to reach the #2 spot after two days is quite the accomplishment. Will they stay there? Probably not at this point, but through innovative marketing and through continuing to try and separate themselves from Google and Yahoo, Bing will most likely continue to pick up steam. Once they do become #2, I'm sure the sights will be set on Google. As for now, I do think Bing will overtake Yahoo, but it will take a lot to catch up to the monster that is Google.