Thursday 30 July 2009

Bing and Google search review

I noticed Microsoft were advertising Bing, saying it gave specific answers. I thought I would do an informal search engine comparison

Here is my first real-life test. I am trying on skins with a friend and notice that the eyebrows look huge. I want to say "That skin has Breshnev eyebrows", but can't remember the name. Using the search term "Russian General with huge eyebrows" gives no sensible results on Bing or Google although I do get a lot of raised eyebrows. So I try for "Russian Generals" and both show lists but no mention of shaggy eyebrows. Switching to images and Google shows Breshnev in the 11th picture. Bing may have it on the first page, but the page is infinitely long and its a long way down, which is cheating. Bing made wrong assumptions about what I was looking for such as Roman Generals or Russian Leaders but it didn't spot that I was looking for eyebrows. Plus that reference to Roman Generals is way off the mark since Romans were big on being clean shaven.

Second test. I knew Romans were clean shaven, but wanted to check it. Searching for "ancient romans shaved" Google got it second answer and several answers below that. Bing was a very naughty search engine, decided that since the ancient Egyptians shaved off all facial hair including eyebrows that it would ignore the first word of my query,"Roman" and that "shaved" was the key word and tell me about Egyptian shaving practices. Hey, if I had wanted 'shaved' it would be the first word, but I put 'Roman' so pay attention Bing!

Google just answers what you asked, making no interpretation. Bing is like an over clever friend who upon being asked what the weather is tells you about pressure differences between land and sea, how clouds are formed, types of precipitation, etc. Bing assumes what you want to know and can make the wrong assumptions.

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