5 ms·

Bing climbs to 13% of search engine market share in the US

50 points by mgh2 3y ago

mgh2 3y ago
Source: https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/united-states-of-america https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/un...
echelon 3y ago
Now's the time to lobby for Google's unfair cross-screen lock-in to end. Google shouldn't be the default search engine on Android or Chrome. It's incredibly monopolistic. All users should get the right to choose before defaults are forced upon them. Their payment of blood money to Apple and Mozilla are also unfair given the fact that they already own all of the other real estate.
- richwater 3y ago
  > It's incredibly monopolistic. It takes less than 30 seconds to change and Chrome is a product _they own_. Take some personal agency. The government doesn't need to hand hold you to change your search engine.
  - echelon 3y ago
    Most people aren't technical. An enormous number of people don't even realize Google isn't the internet. Defaults are the most powerful force field imaginable at population scale. It's like lead in the water. Even technical users are dragged down by the second and third order impacts of defaults imposed upon the masses. For instance, Google gets to control how the web works and there's nothing you can do about it. We should favor robust and healthy competition. Make Google sweat a bit more to earn their place, and give the ecosystem vibrant alternatives that force more rapid innovation.
cubecul 3y ago
Hello - OP of tweet here. It's hard to keep track of the convo on Twitter so I'll comment here. I think there's something wrong with the data. The full chart shows a sudden drop of about 9% market share for Google from March going into April 2024. Meanwhile there are significant gains for Bing and Yahoo. statcounter says they track referrals from search engines (vs. queries directly on the search engine). This suggests to me that there was some change that stopped tracking a significant number of Google referrals, though I don't know enough to know why. On AI: they do not count moments when a chatbot response references a page, only if you click into the page itself. I think the reactions about ChatGPT/Perplexity eating Google are not entirely correct, considering this + the magnitude of the drop.
- WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
  > The full chart shows a sudden drop of about 9% market share for Google from March going into April 2024. Meanwhile there are significant [ed:sudden] gains for Bing and Yahoo. Would the headline benefit from reflecting this?
cs702 3y ago
Including DuckDuckGo, which uses Bing, market share is now 14.7%. Assuming the OP's stats are accurate.
- mey 3y ago
  My favorite part of DDG is the Bangs that allow me to quickly drop out of DDG when DDG doesn't solve my immediate need. At minimum I can start there, make an attempt then quickly append !g and drop into Google directly. I assume/hope they are using that information to know which searches weren't good enough to improve for the future because it's super useful live feedback.
  - bhasi 3y ago
    I didn't know such a feature existed, thanks.
    - mey 3y ago
      Check out https://duckduckgo.com/bangs https://duckduckgo.com/bangs you can dump into pretty much any site, Wikipedia, YouTube, Spotify, Google Translate from the DDG search bar if you have a few favorite bangs memorized. You can put the !<bang> anywhere in the query for it to be picked up as well.
      - epicide 3y ago
        Small correction: you can put it almost anywhere. If you have a quoted search, you need a space between the bang syntax and the quotes, even if the bang syntax comes after. For example, if you search for ["foobar"!g] (without brackets), you will not be redirected to Google, but you would be if you did ["foobar" !g].
neverokay 3y ago
I switched off Google simply because they make me fill out 60 seconds of captchas on any search just because a vpn is on. Kind of ridiculous. Default iOS search now Bing, fuck it.
Narishma 3y ago
Does that include the start menu search or cortana or whatever it's called these days?
- deusum 3y ago
  My favorite part is when you search for a local file, but it fails because it can't connect to the internet.
bluedino 3y ago
Is this mostly coming from more people using Edge (especially in the corporate world)?
narenkeshav 3y ago
I use bing and I am perfectly fine with it. Is there a gain in using Google search?
- eyelidlessness 3y ago
  It’s been a while since I compared, but when I did… Bing was almost always better when I did very specific searches, and Google tended to be better at guessing what I wanted to search. Since then, Google has gotten worse at basically everything so… to your question, probably the opposite.
- s0rce 3y ago
  I don't use bing directly but I use DDG which uses bing and I find most of the time its fine but especially for work/science related queries stuff just won't come up and I'll try it on google and get the useful result near the top.
  - mrweasel 3y ago
    I've used DuckDuckGo from 2012 until 2022, when I switched to Ecosia. Both search engines uses Bing behind the scenes. In my opinion the results have been "good enough" for a long time and as good as Google for at least five years. In the later years Googles results haven't exactly gotten worse, but the layout of their result pages have been degrading fast. So while Google can still find what you're looking for they are hiding those results in favor of showing more ads and trying to keep you leaving their site. It is a little surprising what Google still maintain such a high market share, but that's momentum and force of habit for you.
VHRanger 3y ago
Seems like a data anomaly. With that said, I think it's a good time to go after Google's milkshake: 1. Google clearly lost focus and is rotting. Sundar Pichai makes Steve Ballmer or Brian Krzanich look good by comparison. They're killing search to optimize metrics like "# of searches" that are harmful to long term user value of the platform [1]. Google search has been getting worse for ~5 years, and will not change direction until they get a new CEO. As long as Pichai is at the helm, they'll keep optimizing the KPIs that boost next year's bonus at the expense of making a good service. 2. Kagi does a lot right, but it's run by the kind of lunatic that will spend a significant fraction of the company's budget to buy a t-shirt factory to make t-shirts instead of, you know, making a search engine. 3. Bing exists simply to be a corporate alternative to a competitor. That doesn't make for a good service. 4. DDG <-> bing when it comes to the actual search results. Nothing disruptive in here. 5. LLM based search is nice, but it doesn't fill a lot of the core things people actually search for on a day to day basis. It's a value-add, not a replacement. Couple of thoughts: - With generative AI filling the web with noise at an increasing rate, it'll be more important to rely on actual trust of sources rather than the content that's in there. Network/graph based metrics should do better than parsing/embedding the content itself. - If you're building a search engine service, maybe try to differentiate it for the 21st century? Start by targetting the kind of people that could switch - the same kind of people that already paid for Kagi. Paying for search is a good idea; it's just that Kagi is run by a loonie. Companies run this way don't tend to last. Kagi managed to get going with less than 5 engineers. You can bootstrap your project from commoncrawl these days. 1. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/
- NayamAmarshe 3y ago
  I'd add Brave Search to the list. It's the only Search engine with an independent index that's privacy focused and is actually good! I've been using it for a few years now and I haven't used Google in a long time. The results are pretty good and it also has pretty nice features compared to Bing/Google/DDG. The UI is very minimal, not many distractions and there's also LLM search for those who need it.
  - 3y ago
ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
I've found myself often going to Bing when Google can't give me good results. Is kagi worth it?
- bloopernova 3y ago
  The things that made Kagi worth it for me: Ability to raise/lower the results ranking of sites, along with ability to block sites entirely. (goodbye Pinterest!) Results quality feels better than Google's. Search query language actually works: https://kagi.com/search?q=recipes+%28szechuan+OR+cantonese%29 https://kagi.com/search?q=recipes+%28szechuan+OR+cantonese%2...
- mrweasel 3y ago
  I'd like to know the answer to that as well. Kagi still uses Google for some searches, but mixes it in other stuff. However, I do wonder if Googles search is actually fine, if you use it via Kagi or Ecosia, and its just neutered on Googles own site due to prioritizing advertising.
TheRealDunkirk 3y ago
Could this simply be a result in Microsoft getting more traction in foisting Edge on people, and presenting pop-ups to make it the default?
- pixxel 3y ago
  My comment is related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40224658 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40224658 Foisting, lots of foisting.
jeffbee 3y ago
Standard Twitter conversation: blue check guy posts very surprising conclusion. Very surprising conclusion is widely shared. Six inches down the thread, someone points out that this is obviously far too surprising to be real. But if you aren't a member of Twitter all you can see is posts[0].
post_break 3y ago
Google is getting worse and I know I'm not the only one. Reddit is getting full of AI repost bots, meanwhile DDG and Bing seem to be doing ok. What a weird timeline.
bastardoperator 3y ago
Their search is ad-riddled with subpar results. I think a lot of people are looking for alternatives.
mococa 3y ago
I abandoned Google in favor of Kagi. And I hope they don't just end up making t-shirts.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
pixxel 3y ago
I had to install Direct X to get a game to run on Linux via WINE. The install modal had an additional message which read something like: Install the Bing bar to enjoy blah blah!! And of course the tick box to install was already ticked. I felt like I had time warped back to the 90s. So gross. Linux FTW.

50 points by mgh2 3y ago

mgh2 3y ago

Source: https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/united-states-of-america https://gs.statcounter.com/search-engine-market-share/all/un...

echelon 3y ago

Now's the time to lobby for Google's unfair cross-screen lock-in to end. Google shouldn't be the default search engine on Android or Chrome. It's incredibly monopolistic. All users should get the right to choose before defaults are forced upon them. Their payment of blood money to Apple and Mozilla are also unfair given the fact that they already own all of the other real estate.

richwater 3y ago
> It's incredibly monopolistic. It takes less than 30 seconds to change and Chrome is a product _they own_. Take some personal agency. The government doesn't need to hand hold you to change your search engine.
- echelon 3y ago
  Most people aren't technical. An enormous number of people don't even realize Google isn't the internet. Defaults are the most powerful force field imaginable at population scale. It's like lead in the water. Even technical users are dragged down by the second and third order impacts of defaults imposed upon the masses. For instance, Google gets to control how the web works and there's nothing you can do about it. We should favor robust and healthy competition. Make Google sweat a bit more to earn their place, and give the ecosystem vibrant alternatives that force more rapid innovation.

cubecul 3y ago

Hello - OP of tweet here. It's hard to keep track of the convo on Twitter so I'll comment here. I think there's something wrong with the data. The full chart shows a sudden drop of about 9% market share for Google from March going into April 2024. Meanwhile there are significant gains for Bing and Yahoo. statcounter says they track referrals from search engines (vs. queries directly on the search engine). This suggests to me that there was some change that stopped tracking a significant number of Google referrals, though I don't know enough to know why. On AI: they do not count moments when a chatbot response references a page, only if you click into the page itself. I think the reactions about ChatGPT/Perplexity eating Google are not entirely correct, considering this + the magnitude of the drop.

WarOnPrivacy 3y ago
> The full chart shows a sudden drop of about 9% market share for Google from March going into April 2024. Meanwhile there are significant [ed:sudden] gains for Bing and Yahoo. Would the headline benefit from reflecting this?

cs702 3y ago

Including DuckDuckGo, which uses Bing, market share is now 14.7%. Assuming the OP's stats are accurate.

mey 3y ago
My favorite part of DDG is the Bangs that allow me to quickly drop out of DDG when DDG doesn't solve my immediate need. At minimum I can start there, make an attempt then quickly append !g and drop into Google directly. I assume/hope they are using that information to know which searches weren't good enough to improve for the future because it's super useful live feedback.
- bhasi 3y ago
  I didn't know such a feature existed, thanks.
  - mey 3y ago
    Check out https://duckduckgo.com/bangs https://duckduckgo.com/bangs you can dump into pretty much any site, Wikipedia, YouTube, Spotify, Google Translate from the DDG search bar if you have a few favorite bangs memorized. You can put the !<bang> anywhere in the query for it to be picked up as well.
    - epicide 3y ago
      Small correction: you can put it almost anywhere. If you have a quoted search, you need a space between the bang syntax and the quotes, even if the bang syntax comes after. For example, if you search for ["foobar"!g] (without brackets), you will not be redirected to Google, but you would be if you did ["foobar" !g].

neverokay 3y ago

I switched off Google simply because they make me fill out 60 seconds of captchas on any search just because a vpn is on. Kind of ridiculous. Default iOS search now Bing, fuck it.

Narishma 3y ago

Does that include the start menu search or cortana or whatever it's called these days?

deusum 3y ago
My favorite part is when you search for a local file, but it fails because it can't connect to the internet.

bluedino 3y ago

Is this mostly coming from more people using Edge (especially in the corporate world)?

narenkeshav 3y ago

I use bing and I am perfectly fine with it. Is there a gain in using Google search?

eyelidlessness 3y ago
It’s been a while since I compared, but when I did… Bing was almost always better when I did very specific searches, and Google tended to be better at guessing what I wanted to search. Since then, Google has gotten worse at basically everything so… to your question, probably the opposite.
s0rce 3y ago
I don't use bing directly but I use DDG which uses bing and I find most of the time its fine but especially for work/science related queries stuff just won't come up and I'll try it on google and get the useful result near the top.
- mrweasel 3y ago
  I've used DuckDuckGo from 2012 until 2022, when I switched to Ecosia. Both search engines uses Bing behind the scenes. In my opinion the results have been "good enough" for a long time and as good as Google for at least five years. In the later years Googles results haven't exactly gotten worse, but the layout of their result pages have been degrading fast. So while Google can still find what you're looking for they are hiding those results in favor of showing more ads and trying to keep you leaving their site. It is a little surprising what Google still maintain such a high market share, but that's momentum and force of habit for you.

VHRanger 3y ago

Seems like a data anomaly. With that said, I think it's a good time to go after Google's milkshake: 1. Google clearly lost focus and is rotting. Sundar Pichai makes Steve Ballmer or Brian Krzanich look good by comparison. They're killing search to optimize metrics like "# of searches" that are harmful to long term user value of the platform [1]. Google search has been getting worse for ~5 years, and will not change direction until they get a new CEO. As long as Pichai is at the helm, they'll keep optimizing the KPIs that boost next year's bonus at the expense of making a good service. 2. Kagi does a lot right, but it's run by the kind of lunatic that will spend a significant fraction of the company's budget to buy a t-shirt factory to make t-shirts instead of, you know, making a search engine. 3. Bing exists simply to be a corporate alternative to a competitor. That doesn't make for a good service. 4. DDG <-> bing when it comes to the actual search results. Nothing disruptive in here. 5. LLM based search is nice, but it doesn't fill a lot of the core things people actually search for on a day to day basis. It's a value-add, not a replacement. Couple of thoughts: - With generative AI filling the web with noise at an increasing rate, it'll be more important to rely on actual trust of sources rather than the content that's in there. Network/graph based metrics should do better than parsing/embedding the content itself. - If you're building a search engine service, maybe try to differentiate it for the 21st century? Start by targetting the kind of people that could switch - the same kind of people that already paid for Kagi. Paying for search is a good idea; it's just that Kagi is run by a loonie. Companies run this way don't tend to last. Kagi managed to get going with less than 5 engineers. You can bootstrap your project from commoncrawl these days. 1. https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/ https://www.wheresyoured.at/the-men-who-killed-google/

NayamAmarshe 3y ago
I'd add Brave Search to the list. It's the only Search engine with an independent index that's privacy focused and is actually good! I've been using it for a few years now and I haven't used Google in a long time. The results are pretty good and it also has pretty nice features compared to Bing/Google/DDG. The UI is very minimal, not many distractions and there's also LLM search for those who need it.
- 3y ago

ThrowawayTestr 3y ago

I've found myself often going to Bing when Google can't give me good results. Is kagi worth it?

bloopernova 3y ago
The things that made Kagi worth it for me: Ability to raise/lower the results ranking of sites, along with ability to block sites entirely. (goodbye Pinterest!) Results quality feels better than Google's. Search query language actually works: https://kagi.com/search?q=recipes+%28szechuan+OR+cantonese%29 https://kagi.com/search?q=recipes+%28szechuan+OR+cantonese%2...
mrweasel 3y ago
I'd like to know the answer to that as well. Kagi still uses Google for some searches, but mixes it in other stuff. However, I do wonder if Googles search is actually fine, if you use it via Kagi or Ecosia, and its just neutered on Googles own site due to prioritizing advertising.

TheRealDunkirk 3y ago

Could this simply be a result in Microsoft getting more traction in foisting Edge on people, and presenting pop-ups to make it the default?

pixxel 3y ago
My comment is related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40224658 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40224658 Foisting, lots of foisting.

jeffbee 3y ago

Standard Twitter conversation: blue check guy posts very surprising conclusion. Very surprising conclusion is widely shared. Six inches down the thread, someone points out that this is obviously far too surprising to be real. But if you aren't a member of Twitter all you can see is posts[0].

post_break 3y ago

Google is getting worse and I know I'm not the only one. Reddit is getting full of AI repost bots, meanwhile DDG and Bing seem to be doing ok. What a weird timeline.

bastardoperator 3y ago

Their search is ad-riddled with subpar results. I think a lot of people are looking for alternatives.

mococa 3y ago

I abandoned Google in favor of Kagi. And I hope they don't just end up making t-shirts.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

pixxel 3y ago

I had to install Direct X to get a game to run on Linux via WINE. The install modal had an additional message which read something like: Install the Bing bar to enjoy blah blah!! And of course the tick box to install was already ticked. I felt like I had time warped back to the 90s. So gross. Linux FTW.