5 ms·

Reading the article, the worrying question that jumps out at me is how do google know what the top search on Bing is?

by makerofthings 5y ago

icemelt8 5y ago
Google analytics, most sites have it installed, plus Chrome is also sending telemetry, so they know when any site is opened, what was the referrer search engine. Through some stats magic, it can be inferred
pverghese 5y ago
Searches coming from domain
- makerofthings 5y ago
  Good point! I guess that would give them the number of people searching for google on bing. Maybe there is enough public information about the totals to say this was the most searched term.
  - rjh29 5y ago
    In addition they have Google Analytics on a huge % of pages, so they can track referrals from Bing to those pages, and if the referrals to Google's homepage eclipse those, that's a strong indication. ...assuming Bing isn't preventing that behaviour.
- chopin 5y ago
  That gives you the number but not a comparison. To claim "most searched word on Bing" requires knowledge how much other terms are searched on Bing.
- oars 5y ago
  Could you elaborate on this? Is there a mechanism (e.g. HTTP header) which tells Google this when someone types in "Google" in Bing and presses enter? What if they don't click on the google.com search result?
  - aembleton 5y ago
    Yes, it is the referer header, for example this is what my browser sends when clicking a link from Bing after searching for google: Referer: https://www.bing.com/search?q=google&pq&cvid=3C49B41400954D399CEF88966B13xxxx https://www.bing.com/search?q=google&pq&cvid=3C49B41400954D3... Google can use that to see your search terms because it in the value of the q attribute. If they don't go to a Google property then they will still be able to get this information, if the website they do go to uses Google Analytics (which is most of the web).

5 ms·

Reading the article, the worrying question that jumps out at me is how do google know what the top search on Bing is?

by makerofthings 5y ago

Reading the article, the worrying question that jumps out at me is how do google know what the top search on Bing is?

icemelt8 5y ago
Google analytics, most sites have it installed, plus Chrome is also sending telemetry, so they know when any site is opened, what was the referrer search engine. Through some stats magic, it can be inferred
pverghese 5y ago
Searches coming from domain
- makerofthings 5y ago
  Good point! I guess that would give them the number of people searching for google on bing. Maybe there is enough public information about the totals to say this was the most searched term.
  - rjh29 5y ago
    In addition they have Google Analytics on a huge % of pages, so they can track referrals from Bing to those pages, and if the referrals to Google's homepage eclipse those, that's a strong indication. ...assuming Bing isn't preventing that behaviour.
- chopin 5y ago
  That gives you the number but not a comparison. To claim "most searched word on Bing" requires knowledge how much other terms are searched on Bing.
- oars 5y ago
  Could you elaborate on this? Is there a mechanism (e.g. HTTP header) which tells Google this when someone types in "Google" in Bing and presses enter? What if they don't click on the google.com search result?
  - aembleton 5y ago
    Yes, it is the referer header, for example this is what my browser sends when clicking a link from Bing after searching for google: Referer: https://www.bing.com/search?q=google&pq&cvid=3C49B41400954D399CEF88966B13xxxx https://www.bing.com/search?q=google&pq&cvid=3C49B41400954D3... Google can use that to see your search terms because it in the value of the q attribute. If they don't go to a Google property then they will still be able to get this information, if the website they do go to uses Google Analytics (which is most of the web).