From Google Blog: Bing is copying Google Search results

In doing basic search optimization, I've always focused on Google results, yet mindful of the fact that Yahoo uses Bing to power their search results, and Yahoo still being a major part of search in the Philippines.

It's difficult enough to figure out the intricacies of the Google Search algorithm, but reading that Bing copies Google's search engine results just validates what I thought was the right thing to do. You optimize for Google, more or less you're optimized for Yahoo & Bing. It's not best practice, but it's what you resort to with clients who are not willing to pay the extra buck for more fine-tuned search optimization.

Read the story below, then read Bing's response: http://searchengineland.com/bing-admits-using-customer-search-data-says-google-pulled-spy-novelesque-stunt-63162

Tell me what you think.

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Microsoft’s Bing uses Google search results—and denies it

2/01/2011 02:56:00 PM

By now, you may have read Danny Sullivan’s recent post: “Google: Bing is Cheating, Copying Our Search Results” and heard Microsoft’s response, “We do not copy Google's results.” However you define copying, the bottom line is, these Bing results came directly from Google.

I’d like to give you some background and details of our experiments that lead us to understand just how Bing is using Google web search results.

It all started with tarsorrhaphy. Really. As it happens, tarsorrhaphy is a rare surgical procedure on eyelids. And in the summer of 2010, we were looking at the search results for an unusual misspelled query [torsorophy]. Google returned the correct spelling—tarsorrhaphy—along with results for the corrected query. At that time, Bing had no results for the misspelling. Later in the summer, Bing started returning our first result to their users without offering the spell correction (see screenshots below). This was very strange. How could they return our first result to their users without the correct spelling? Had they known the correct spelling, they could have returned several more relevant results for the corrected query.

This example opened our eyes, and over the next few months we noticed that URLs from Google search results would later appear in Bing with increasing frequency for all kinds of queries: popular queries, rare or unusual queries and misspelled queries. Even search results that we would consider mistakes of our algorithms started showing up on Bing.

We couldn’t shake the feeling that something was going on, and our suspicions became much stronger in late October 2010 when we noticed a significant increase in how often Google’s top search result appeared at the top of Bing’s ranking for a variety of queries. This statistical pattern was too striking to ignore. To test our hypothesis, we needed an experiment to determine whether Microsoft was really using Google’s search results in Bing’s ranking.

We created about 100 “synthetic queries”—queries that you would never expect a user to type, such as [hiybbprqag]. As a one-time experiment, for each synthetic query we inserted as Google’s top result a unique (real) webpage which had nothing to do with the query. Below is an example:


To be clear, the synthetic query had no relationship with the inserted result we chose—the query didn’t appear on the webpage, and there were no links to the webpage with that query phrase. In other words, there was absolutely no reason for any search engine to return that webpage for that synthetic query. You can think of the synthetic queries with inserted results as the search engine equivalent of marked bills in a bank.

We gave 20 of our engineers laptops with a fresh install of Microsoft Windows running Internet Explorer 8 with Bing Toolbar installed. As part of the install process, we opted in to the “Suggested Sites” feature of IE8, and we accepted the default options for the Bing Toolbar.

We asked these engineers to enter the synthetic queries into the search box on the Google home page, and click on the results, i.e., the results we inserted. We were surprised that within a couple weeks of starting this experiment, our inserted results started appearing in Bing. Below is an example: a search for [hiybbprqag] on Bing returned a page about seating at a theater in Los Angeles. As far as we know, the only connection between the query and result is Google’s result page (shown above).


We saw this happen for multiple queries. For the query [delhipublicschool40 chdjob] we inserted a search result for a credit union:

The same credit union soon showed up on Bing for that query:


For the query [juegosdeben1ogrande] we inserted a page of hip hop bling jewelry:


And the same hip hop bling page showed up in Bing:


As we see it, this experiment confirms our suspicion that Bing is using some combination of:

• Internet Explorer 8, which can send data to Microsoft via its Suggested Sites feature
• the Bing Toolbar, which can send data via Microsoft’s Customer Experience Improvement Program

or possibly some other means to send data to Bing on what people search for on Google and the Google search results they click. Those results from Google are then more likely to show up on Bing. Put another way, some Bing results increasingly look like an incomplete, stale version of Google results—a cheap imitation.

At Google we strongly believe in innovation and are proud of our search quality. We’ve invested thousands of person-years into developing our search algorithms because we want our users to get the right answer every time they search, and that’s not easy. We look forward to competing with genuinely new search algorithms out there—algorithms built on core innovation, and not on recycled search results from a competitor. So to all the users out there looking for the most authentic, relevant search results, we encourage you to come directly to Google. And to those who have asked what we want out of all this, the answer is simple: we'd like for this practice to stop.

Posted by Amit Singhal, Google Fellow

You think you know how to do search optimization?

If you think you know much about search optimization, then stop reading. But if your admit you're still learning, then read on. We'll all learn a thing or two from Brian:

How to optimize your entire search funnel

By Brian Eberman

September 15, 2009

In search, optimization starts at the time a user sees your ad, and sometimes it doesn't end until months after they leave your site. The most effective advertisers are able to view this entire funnel and optimize each piece of it, thereby balancing engine optimization and profit optimization along the way.

Engine optimization
As competition in your category increases, identifying unique, quality keywords becomes increasingly difficult. While basic keyword research and expansion continues to be important, search engine marketing professionals need to find other tools to gain a competitive advantage. Web marketers need to be skilled at selecting keywords that will not only drive traffic, but also drive conversions in a cost-effective manner. Engine optimization focuses mostly on two elements and the interactions that occur between them: keywords and ad copy.

Keyword optimization has multiple elements and is constantly progressing. The initial piece deals with the keyword list in and of itself -- choosing the right keywords for your campaigns. The "right keywords" are different at each stage of your campaign.

At launch, the "right keywords" generally consist of keywords that will produce high quality scores in the engines and will effectively "burn-in" your account. Generally speaking, these are keywords that will produce a high volume of data in a short period of time so both you and the engine can make a quick decision about how well the keyword performs.

However, avoid keywords that are too broad or too competitive. Broad terms are difficult to target in a granular enough fashion to produce high click-through rates, and super competitive terms are generally overpriced and difficult to achieve high position on at launch. Higher volume, mid-tail terms (three- to four-word terms) that are relevant to your site are generally best for initial quality score.

When deciding quality score, engines are mostly looking at one element: click-through rate. High click-through rates both indicate a high expression of user interest and optimize engine profit -- making it the most dominant variable contributing to quality score. That being said, when launching a campaign, it's in the advertiser's best interest to make ads particularly imploring, oftentimes more aggressive than you would run long term.

It is important that the ad showing properly matches with the keyword query being searched. This requires a granularly organized account structure set up for proper ad serving. Experiments have shown that the most optimal account structure is based on semantic groupings versus random groupings or keywords grouped by quality score. When deciding if a keyword or a group of keywords require their own ad group, ask yourself, "Could the user intent of these keywords be any different? Is there any different messaging I would want to serve to make the ad more relevant?" If so, break it out separately.

Once keywords have established a sufficient click history and ad text is delivering high quality scores, a positive account history has been created. Now you can begin expansion. During this process, you can add longer-tail keywords to the account, as well as highly competitive terms. You can also begin to optimize the account toward profit goals through bidding and keyword value refinement

Profit optimization
Profit optimization mainly occurs through bidding and refining the granularity and accuracy of those bids. Bidding looks at two major variables -- the keywords themselves and the conversion data attributed to them. Because of broad match and lack of conversion visibility, bid value predictions are often inaccurate and do not maximize profit.

To help combat broad match diluting bid values, you must get as granular in your keyword list as there is data to support. This means analyzing query data to find search queries representing keywords not currently in your account but with enough data to justify your decision. Keywords with positive conversion history should be added and bid separately. Keywords that cannot be profitable should be added as negatives.

Another way to bid more pricelessly on keywords with sufficient volume is to bid each match type separately. By cloning your campaigns and bidding each to a separate match type, you can take advantage of optimizing to the different conversion rates that result from each. In general, exact match terms produce the highest conversion rates and thus can be bid higher. Phrase match follows after that, and broad match is usually the lowest, as it is the least targeted.

The same process goes for geo-targeting. Analyze your conversion data by state to determine if any conversion rate differences exist. If so, break them out as geo-targeted campaigns with a national campaign overlaid to prevent losing users due to IP issues. Bid the keywords to their separate values.

Often, advertisers will lack the conversion data needed to make accurate decisions, and the above actions become difficult. In this case, it is best to try and find other informative data points or goals that exist within the funnel to use -- for example, a lead rather than a sale, time spent on site, pages visited. Many different metrics found by using analytics, placing pixels, or having actions users can trigger can serve as proxies for an end value conversion.

Ultimately, good bidders should understand their willingness to pay at each point in the conversion process. It is often advisable to use multiple variables to determine bid values, weighting the variable that correlates most with the probability of an end conversion the highest. As data become more plentiful, optimization can get closer to the final conversion point without sacrificing lack of data and transparency for value along the way.

Data can drive your bottom line
In summary, make your data work for you. Knowledge is power -- don't throw it away. The more data you have, the smarter and more effective you can be. A keyword or phrase specific to your industry or business category isn't always the optimal fit for your PPC campaign. Opinions don't matter. The numbers don't lie. It's the math that counts most. Invest in a database and spend some time understanding the numbers. It'll be well worth your time and make you a more efficient marketer.

Brian Eberman is CEO of Avenue100 Media Solutions.