I've been watching the webmaster forums and it seems to me that people are hating Bing. I don't really get this. Ok, it doesn't give you as much traffic as Google but I've just checked my analytics and the Bing visits have an amazingly low bounce rate across many of my websites. Pages per visit rate is also much, much better than that of Google. OK, I still get twice as much traffic from the "G" but I actually like to see people browsing the website for a longer period of time. That's probably because Bing is prevalently used by women and elderly people. What do you think? What are your bounce rates?
On just about all of my sites: Google traffic bounce rate - about 50% - 55% Bing bounce rate - about 23% Yahoo bounce rate - about 25% I dont understand why people hype google, it provides some of the worst targeted traffic my sites have.
Give Bing some time...we need competition in the serch engine field. G is still dominating, but we gotta have faith in Bing.
i think Bing is a good search engine, just as fast as google i am sure over time they will refine their search. but yes google accounts for about twice as much traffic as bing for me
From regular user perspective - I do like Bing personally. They have delivered much better results compared to the old MNS, thus even better compared to current Yahoo. From webmaster perspective - I have no positive nor negative neither toward Bing currently. They have brought a little traffics but they have potential to growth a lot more in the future.
Thank the SE Gods for B and Y. A couple months ago G whacked one of my best sites from #7 to #217 for my primary phrase which cost me around 40% of my uniques. Not long after that the site jumped to #1 on both B and Y and they have so far recovered near 80% of the loss, Interesting thing is G still makes money as my Adsense is paying well. Bing became my default search several weeks ago and so far no regrets. G is still there but only when needed.
@Harkster, LOL! Talk about taking a step backwards. It's almost like you saying you use IE as a browser. Lol! I'm sure you're just kidding.
Care to share a tip? That bounce rate, I tell you, is A-MA-ZING! That's what I think too. Competition among search engines will work a treat for the webmasters! Maybe G puts too much weight on the backlinks. And backlinks can and will be manipulated. Thus, for example, if you look for a certain piece of software, the first three pages of G search results will be dominated by those huge bad automated software info websites that have no value whatsoever. Search for the same software in Bing and voila! you'll get the software author's website as the top result - just like it should be! Have you ever imagined that there might be people out there who do not hate Microsoft? I've noticed that some folks just seem to find it difficult to come to terms with a fact that some other folks are filthy rich and enjoying the life big time!
What does hating Microsoft have to do with using IE? No one should use IE. It's incompetent, incomplete, old, and holds back the web! You can LOVE Microsoft but NO ONE should love IE. It's a web developer's nightmare. In fact, I find the only people who use IE are those who know nothing about the web and how it works. Don't throw that 'MS-hate' BS at me unless you are one of those. Haven't a clue what you mean by that. Using IE causes nothing but grief for those who have to work with it.
Umh... actually, my sarcastic remark had nothing to do with the IE. I just think that switching from Google to Bing cannot be compared to switching from Firefox to IE. I agree with you that Microsoft has lost the battle for the browser market. However, I've found that many people hate Bing only because it is owned by Microsoft. And that, I think, is wrong.
You're right. My point remains the same applied to Bing, though. Bing only has 3% market share and some, here, say things like, "I'm switching to Bing because Google down ranked my site!" but that's just wanting to be #1 no matter how low you have to stoop to do it. I'd rather be #100 on Google where everyone is looking than #1 on Bing where few eyes see it.
I always found that Microsoft and Yahoo search achieved the stats you mentioned. I also noticed that although fewer visits came from Bing, it always converted better. Now if they could just grab a larger piece of the search pie.
Absolutely not. I discovered not to long ago that, from where I sit the B results are new and refreshing where G is the same old unchanging and very often non-relevant crap. Sometimes I feel they aren't interested in providing quality results but pumping the sites which feed the Adsense Bank. I am a directory owner (notice I said directory not link farm) and for some time Bing has been a source of good, interesting, quality and fresh websites which I add to the directories as supplements to the ordinary submissions. Does that mean I ignore G? Hell no! I ain't stupid and fully realize what we, as developers must prostrate ourselves at the feet of G and kiss the most holy ring. Ain't gonna happen - long live Firefox and may IE do the internet surfers a favor and finally die. I find it just a bit less useful than mammary glands on a male swine. <edit>I have never been a Microsoft lover. In the day I was an OS2 user and to this day I lament that IBM totally screwed things up by not stomping on gates like a bug. Hell in the late 1990's it was a 32 bit processing powerhouse (for that time) but the GUI was lacking. Ah, I do remember the days of REXX scripting. But as I said earlier MS is starting to get it right -- maybe by W15 it will be a 'real' os and not just a pretty bloated GUI sitting on top of a up bunch of archaic code.</edit>
New and refreshing or irrelevent? Remember that Google results are based on who links to the site by others (at least that's the foundation) and providing new links does not mean quality. If a link is "non-relevant crap" then everyone else in the world is voting with their clicks.
Bounce rates around 30-40% are pretty good. Once you get over 50%, you need to start figuring out why. Here's a new blog with 10 ways to reduce your bounce rate. http://www.diamondwebsiteconversion.com/10-great-ways-to-lower-your-websites-bounce-rate/