Google or Bing? Two search titans in the fight for supremacy

For the past few months, the search engine waters have increased their activity and things have reached a boiling point.  Microsoft and Yahoo! teamed up to overthrow Google, the reigning King, by renaming the old Live Search, now known as "Bing". Google included some improvements on its end, by trying out a test version of its own engine called Caffeine, and added some new features to its classic interface. But in the end, as 2009 was leaving us, the fact of the matter is that this year the question remains the same: which of the two is the best?

Conditioned behavior

The first thing that catches one´s attention is Bing's appearance. It´s nothing like Google's spartan interface. Built over a nice gray background, lie a beautiful picture and landscape that changes every day. And on this beautiful landscape, Bing, the logo and search box. Now that gets a 10 for Style. Against this visual display, Google´s minimalist homepage seems, well, soulless. Even worse than that:  it seems outdated. But it is true that in the end, the results are what count, although one must admit that visiting Bing´s page is much more enjoyable and refreshing.

We can put them to the test over and over again, launch the same search in both search engines and we´ll probably never reach a conclusive verdict. Is it true that Google seems to offer the best results, at least the most important ones, or is it just a personal opinion based on habit? Are we so conditioned by Google that we can´t see all the good things Bing has to offer? Bing probably still needs to reach a rapid boil in order to catch up with Google, although not as bad as some may think.

So where does this lead us? In our opinion, nowadays not everything revolves around the “search engine” itself, rather than ease of use, clarity of results, and customized listings, features and services that can provide value to the browser. Why not add on the social aspect to that list? At Finday, we believe the time has come to dress up a search engine with more than just a pretty picture.