Ask HN: Why Bing (and others) is so behind Google in features?

[betimd]

We all see the naturality that Google developed on search while this is missing on Bing and other search engines.

Knowing the fact of Microsoft development abilities, money the have and infrastructure (Azure) I'm very surprised how they are so behind in terms of features (search, NLP, context, etc) with Google.

Anyone shares same opinion?

[codingdave]

No, I liked Google's results better 10 years ago. They are trying too hard to guess what I am asking for, and sometimes I find it difficult to look for a variety of answers because I get the one "right" answer, posted on a couple dozen pages. Some searches turn up so many of their new widgets that I don't even feel like I get a page of results... just canned questions and answers and widgets. Other searches give me 2 pages from a single site (pinterest, reddit, etc.), or most often, multiple pages of SEO-optimized content from people trying to flip Wordpress blogs for profit. If searching for reviews on retail products, I almost always ignore the first few pages of results on Google to try to find real reviews by real people.

I prefer search engines that are just search engines, and give me a basic list of results that I can judge for myself.

[nomel → codingdave]

> They are trying too hard to guess what I am asking for,

If you’ve ever watched a non tech person use a search engine, you’ll realize why they’re probably doing that. Most people I’ve seen type their question into Google, rather than “search terms”. I imagine this is the norm since the whole concept of a keyword search requires some understanding of how the first search engines worked.

[skinner927 → nomel]

This is the real answer. I don’t remember what show it was (some stupid big brother reality show), but many years ago I saw a girl search on Google for “if you kiss a dead wet fish on a beach with your lips can you get a disease?” Or something just as asinine and I realized at that moment that search was doomed.

[muzani]

Is it? Bing works just great for me. A lot of Google's results have been inaccurate lately, mostly from too much SEO manipulation.

[strikelaserclaw]

Are we sure that we aren't biased towards google due to familiarity? I started using google a long time ago before bing was even a thing and now I know that i use google mainly due to inertia. The weird thing is over the year my searches have gotten much more narrower, and i usually end up viewing results from reddit, amazon, stackoverflow and a hand full of megacorps. I'm really not even sure how hard search is when most of the information people want to see is concentrated in a few websites. Google used to be a lot more useful back in the day when i would scour page after page looking for information from obscure one off websites.

[gostsamo]

Search is the core of Google. The best engineers of the company are centered around it. Microsoft has other priorities and they can either invest billions to just be even with someone who was their first or they can have a search engine that is good enough for everyone who does not like Google.

[ffpip]

Lots of google's search improvements are from browsing data from Chrome. This can help in freshness of pages, adding unknown URLs, determining how much a page is trending/popular

[betimd]

It’s interesting to see that HN people are not using Google as their primary choice, at least these that commented out. Very surprised tbh.

[s5ma6n]

I recently gave Bing a chance after DDG being so slow and now I am quite happy with the result quality and presentation of Bing. Give it a try!

[yostrovs → s5ma6n]

I also gave their news section a chance to compare to Google news and it seems vastly superior in content quantity. Simply search "Russia" for example and you will find a lot more stories than the main headlines in Google News. You will find out local things happening in that country, not just what Putin is up to.

[pvmoorthi]

Here is why I've been using BING since starting, 1. Comparing Search Results: 99% same in both on my needs 2. UI. I like Bing interface - quick leads to images and videos and the UI in all categories. 3. Content presentation - MS being top Developer friendly content portal, they apply a lot in Bing navigation. 4. No Old Cached results: Bing doesn't have much of before Bing results like google has that breaks. 5. User engagement Home Page: Treating you to learn, developing curiosity, with Informative Pictures, News scroll, Bing rewards questions - a quick brain training session, I've learned a lot (honestly) 6. No annoying Personalization .

Google advantages over Bing: 1. Map: I some times switch to google map 2. Old Cached data (Before Bing) - thought it breaks, some times it helps weather the data / site is active or not.

[gpapilion]

I think the identity of google as a search company continues to drive innovation. They have a deep desire to provide you the exact answer you’re looking for.

Microsoft is an enterprise sales company, who is driven to sell product. They are capable of delivering a world class search product, but it’s not the same priority for them.

[jpttsn]

I don’t like Google’s search results very much. What features am I not seeing?

[giantg2]

Is it possible some people want fewer features?

I do fine with duckduckgo 99.9% of the time (Google job search is pretty nice). Similarly, when it comes to electric cars, I can't wait for a cheap, stripped down work truck.

[willio58]

Look, I’m not a fan of Google but to me and everyone I’ve met outside of HN, it is vastly superior to Bing.

There is an anti-Google agenda on HN, possibly rightfully so, but still. Claiming that Bing is better than Google doesn’t magically make it so.