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Google: Bing Is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results

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sangreal

Member
They mad? For what it is worth, Google's autocorrection is crap and it is annoying as hell that you can not turn it off. I hate having to go back and put words in quotes because Google thinks it knows better than me what I wanted to search for.

Also, this is bullshit:
In fact, Google stressed that the only information that flows back at all from Chrome is what people are searching for from within the browser, if they are using Google as their search engine.

Unless you disable it, Chrome sends your URLs to Google as you type them for a predictive service like Google instant.
 

notworksafe

Member
Xater said:
I have read those responses but I don't "know" you. Also it doesn't answer how well it is doing.

I always get what I need out of my Google searches so I don't see the need to change anything about that.
To be honest it doesn't matter how "well" it's doing. It's part of MS's overall strategy so it isn't going anywhere (though it grows in marketshare at a regular pace fwiw).

I'm also not saying Google searches are bad. Eventually the info I want comes up in 9 out of 10 cases. I'm just saying Bing often provides more relevant results higher up on the page and with more info surrounding them than Google does, most likely because of hand inserted results like these.
 

Clydefrog

Member
Only a small number of the test searches produced this result, about 7 to 9 (depending on when exactly Google checked) out of the 100. Google says it doesn’t know why they didn’t all work, but even having a few appear was enough to convince the company that Bing was copying its results.

If Bing is copying Google, they're either terrible at it or are consciously trying to hide it.

and yeah that was a really cool article to read. thanks, OP!
 
D

Deleted member 1235

Unconfirmed Member
a search engine that searches the best search engine for results?! They should just expand their cheating, so should google. I would like it if governments around the world said 'fuck this, internet is open season on technology'

we'd have crazy crap in WEEKS
 

TheOMan

Tagged as I see fit
Nerevar said:
Unless I'm mistaken, didn't these users actually install the bing toolbar, which explicitly says it will use the users' search results to improve search results? Sounds like a bunch of Google users gamed the Bing search engine by taking advantage of the algorithm and then blamed Microsoft for stealing their search results. Hardly "cheating", and incredibly dishonest to come from Google, IMO.

Best spin I've ever read in my life. slowclap.gif
 

sangreal

Member
Aruarian Reflection said:
This thread made me try out Bing. Google search has been deteriorating and you're an idiot if you haven't noticed. Content farms are gaming the algorithm and search has been increasingly returning useless results. Google has said that they're planning on doing something about it, but in the meantime I'll give Bing a shot

http://gigaom.com/2011/01/21/google-war-demand-media-ipo/

It's true, I end up with more -"terms" than relevant terms in my queries these days to weed out all the shit results Google returns. I won't be switching search engines any time soon though.
 

mollipen

Member
Hari Seldon said:
Google looks at your emails and your search history and targets adds at you, so fuck them.

If I'm going to see ads, why in the world would I not want ads that are better targeted at me and which may actually be useful?

The whole "looking in your email" thing, okay, that might be a bit weird, but if it's done in the confines of a Gmail login I've got no problem with it. Otherwise, give me ads that are useful to me!

And Bing is one of an endless string of attempts by Microsoft to be relevant in an area in which they're not, so screw it. Well, except I do kind of like it, because every morning I boot into Windows, spend a few minutes doing Bing searches, and earn points, which has so far gotten me 800 free Microsoft Points with which to buy XBLA stuff. So I guess for five minutes a day I like Bing, but otherwise screw it.



Aruarian Reflection said:
This thread made me try out Bing. Google search has been deteriorating and you're an idiot if you haven't noticed. Content farms are gaming the algorithm and search has been increasingly returning useless results. Google has said that they're planning on doing something about it, but in the meantime I'll give Bing a shot

Yeah, this is kind of an issue, and I'll be glad if Google can do something about it. My biggest frustration is all of these sites that basically get set up and then have a page about any topic under the f'n sun so that they hit as a search result, and then you go there and they look like content sites but they're nothing but an endless stream of links and confusion.

There's a plug-in that I have that can ban sites from Google results, though, which has been a great help. Google use to have that "rank the results" option, which they really need to bring back no matter how much some people might bitch about it.
 

The Technomancer

card-carrying scientician
Calling it for the Oscar in 2015

d79JT.png
 

BlazeDSM

Member
Just for the hell of it I tried to use bing on my android phone today and they didn't get along too well.
 

JaggedSac

Member
ColtraineGF said:
Well, I'm a bit confused.

1. People search for (nonsense word), in some sort of high volume, clicking on a certain site a lot.
2. Bing Bar/Suggested Sites collects info that says x number of users click on this site when searching for y random thing
3. Bing starts to return said sites when said new term is searched for.

I mean, isn't that the purpose of collecting data on what users search for (opt-in)? TO see what they click on when they search for something?

This.
 
Bing is pretty solid, but I can't use it for more than 10 seconds because it always has photo background images, which I find super tacky. Not a bad search engine, though.
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
ColtraineGF said:
Well, I'm a bit confused.

1. People search for (nonsense word), in some sort of high volume, clicking on a certain site a lot.
2. Bing Bar/Suggested Sites collects info that says x number of users click on this site when searching for y random thing
3. Bing starts to return said sites when said new term is searched for.

I mean, isn't that the purpose of collecting data on what users search for (opt-in)? TO see what they click on when they search for something?

Nevermind.

I think even allowing it in the TOS does not make it right for MS as far as Google is concerned. They can be seen as effectively copying the results.
 

ThatObviousUser

ὁ αἴσχιστος παῖς εἶ
Hope the EU slams them for this. This is anti-competitive behavior, plain and simple, abusing IE's browser share to prop up their search results.
 

Neki

Member
Sir Fragula said:
Does this hurt consumers? No? Cool.
So long as companies fail to hurt consumers with their underhanded tactics, they're allowed to do whatever they want? sounds like sound logic we got here.
 

Walshicus

Member
Ultimoo said:
So long as companies fail to hurt consumers with their underhanded tactics, they're allowed to do whatever they want? sounds like sound logic we got here.
Well, I'm a consumer... so yeah.
 

enzo_gt

tagged by Blackace
The idea of alternatives to Google in my head just seems so odd. Like, you literally have to go out of your way to use an alternative that will more or less be a more frustrating, or a slower or worse experience.

As it usually is if I try my luck at Bing or Yahoo or anything else.
 

sangreal

Member
AndyD said:
Nevermind.

I think even allowing it in the TOS does not make it right for MS as far as Google is concerned. They can be seen as effectively copying the results.

They a) are not copying the results -- even effectively*. b) don't give a shit what Google thinks is right. Why would/should they?

*Unless only one result is returned, which is the case in the manually manipulated results google presented.
 
enzo_gt said:
The idea of alternatives to Google in my head just seems so odd. Like, you literally have to go out of your way to use an alternative that will more or less be a more frustrating, or a slower or worse experience.

As it usually is if I try my luck at Bing or Yahoo or anything else.
yea, I have yet to use a search engine that does anything especially better than Google. or at least, enough better to make me not want to use Google.
 

andycapps

Member
Sir Fragula said:

Even if the search engine was as good as Google's, from Google I have access to Gmail, docs, calendar, maps, all that.. No reason to abandon that, for me. Though the XBL points is interesting.
 

Walshicus

Member
stressboy said:
Hey man, it is always cool when you are a fan of the company.
Not being "outraged" by this? Like I say, I'm a consumer not an employee of Google or Microsoft. If one company *did* use data from its rivals to improve its own product [pretty much the essence of competition?] then how does that hurt us consumers?
 

Hilbert

Deep into his 30th decade
OpinionatedCyborg said:
Bing is pretty solid, but I can't use it for more than 10 seconds because it always has photo background images, which I find super tacky. Not a bad search engine, though.

I like those images. Sometimes I even find myself clicking through to see more information about it. A while ago they had a photo of carnivorous plants, which made them really awesome in my book.

I tend to use bing mostly, but I do have quite a few friends on the bing team.
 

Walshicus

Member
Hilbert said:
I like those images. Sometimes I even find myself clicking through to see more information about it. A while ago they had a photo of carnivorous plants, which made them really awesome in my book.

I tend to use bing mostly, but I do have quite a few friends on the bing team.
They tend to be pretty well done on the Windows Phone 7's screen aspect ratio - especially the night time city scenes. I hear they're introducing streamed high-def video backgrounds with IE 9.
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
Sir Fragula said:
Not being "outraged" by this? Like I say, I'm a consumer not an employee of Google or Microsoft. If one company *did* use data from its rivals to improve its own product [pretty much the essence of competition?] then how does that hurt us consumers?

The idea is if you allow stealing, then there is less incentive to be innovative. So if anyone could simply steal Google's ideas,methods, algorithms on searching then what incentive does google have to keep improving?

Competition is about developing your own solution to a problem in the market, not using the competition's data and presenting it as your own work.
 

DarthWoo

I'm glad Grandpa porked a Chinese Muslim
turnbuckle said:
Is google then cheating by looking over our shoulder and using targeted ads?

Last week I was looking at a couple websites about p90x from links a friend sent me. Later that day I typed "what do I need..." and before I finished the sentence the top suggestion was "What do I need for P90x".

A couple weeks before that I was thinking of preordering the 3ds and started typing in "when do..." and the first suggestion that popped up was "when do 3DS preorders begin"

I'm sorta kidding as my examples are different than what's going on here but thought it was kinda funny anyways. I find the extremely relevant suggestions kinda freaky but really cool. Porn works better through bing though. Or at least it did when I last checked (haven't watched porn in over a month!)

I'm not really sure that's from tracking cookies so much as just referencing extremely common searches from the aggregate of users. I just tried typing "what do I need..." as well, and got the same result. I'm guessing that P90X is just an extremely popular topic right now, as is the 3DS.
 

Neki

Member
Sir Fragula said:
Not being "outraged" by this? Like I say, I'm a consumer not an employee of Google or Microsoft. If one company *did* use data from its rivals to improve its own product [pretty much the essence of competition?] then how does that hurt us consumers?
So you're saying that it is okay for competitors to steal their products from each other, as long as the final product they produce in the end is better? That is your definition of competition? If every business knew that their idea could be stolen with no compensation or protection, there would never be any incentive to start a business. This is why this it is bad for consumers.
 

Walshicus

Member
Ultimoo said:
So you're saying that it is okay for competitors to steal their products from each other, as long as the final product they produce in the end is better? That is your definition of competition? If every business knew that their idea could be stolen with no compensation or protection, there would never be any incentive to start a business. This is why this it is bad for consumers.
I don't think anyone has stolen anything here. If this is illegal then something needs to be done. As it is, it just looks like they're using clickstream data from people who have opted in to improve the accuracy of their search results. Which seems like a pretty sensible thing to do, right?
 

andycapps

Member
Sir Fragula said:
Not being "outraged" by this? Like I say, I'm a consumer not an employee of Google or Microsoft. If one company *did* use data from its rivals to improve its own product [pretty much the essence of competition?] then how does that hurt us consumers?

It would essentially be like GM stealing plans for how Honda makes their cars. Yeah, the end result has GM's name on it, but Honda did all the engineering work and spent billions on research.
 

commish

Jason Kidd murdered my dog in cold blood!
AndyD said:
The idea is if you allow stealing, then there is less incentive to be innovative. So if anyone could simply steal Google's ideas,methods, algorithms on searching then what incentive does google have to keep improving?

Competition is about developing your own solution to a problem in the market, not using the competition's data and presenting it as your own work.

What's Google's incentive? How about to differentiate itself from all of those who are copying it? Innovate in such a way that others cannot simply copy?
 

Sydle

Member
Still fail to see what the big deal is for using Google search results as an ranking indicator. Seems like the only ones who are hurt are the people who don't like Microsoft, or think Google can do no wrong.

andycapps said:
Even if the search engine was as good as Google's, from Google I have access to Gmail, docs, calendar, maps, all that.. No reason to abandon that, for me. Though the XBL points is interesting.

Bing has access to Hotmail (includes calendar, Web Office, messenger), Bing maps, and more.

Sir Fragula said:
I don't think anyone has stolen anything here. If this is illegal then something needs to be done. As it is, it just looks like they're using clickstream data from people who have opted in to improve the accuracy of their search results. Which seems like a pretty sensible thing to do, right?

This. People are making a big deal out of nothing.
 

andycapps

Member
Paco said:
Bing has access to Hotmail (includes calendar, Web Office, messenger), Bing maps, and more.

Hotmail? lol no thanks. Web office is cool but I don't use MSN messenger or anything. Oh I forgot about Google Talk, everyone I know is on there.
 

twofold

Member
So, how long will it be before someone comes up with a script that sends false click data to Microsoft so that they can manipulate the search rankings on bing?

I give it a week, tops.
 

AndyD

aka andydumi
commish said:
What's Google's incentive? How about to differentiate itself from all of those who are copying it? Innovate in such a way that others cannot simply copy?

I think you are missing the point. In general is copying were allowed you could not differentiate yourself. The second you improved anything, you'd be copied. I don't mean aped, copied.

Their incentive started a long time ago, they place ads on those search results. And the quality and speed of the search is what brings people to their engine.
 

Sydle

Member
MCD said:

Article said:
Earlier today a clash of the titans, or clash of the search engine giants, sparked an Internet out burst of Google accusing Bing of stealing their search results. From the looks of it, Microsoft was caught red handed in stealing both titles and descriptions of various search results.

Where is the lol smiley when I need it? Titles and descriptions are indexed from info on the website, of course they're going to be the same! Stupid author.

I hope Bing continues to grow, so we can see more whining from Google. Oh, and competition is good...
 
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