Well, it didn’t take long for the marketplace to render its verdict on the Bing search engine phenomenon. Fueled by a multi-million dollar advertising rollout plus an aggressive PR push, web tracking service StatCounter has reported that Bing actually vaulted past Yahoo to become the #2 search engine … for one day.
That’s right. According to StatCounter’s data, on June 4th, Bing captured over 15% of the U.S. search share market, while Yahoo had only around 10%. By the next day, Bing’s share had dropped below 10% while Yanoo notched up a point to 11%. And by Day 3, Bing’s share had fallen still further to just under 7%.
Think it couldn’t get worse? The day after that, Bing was mired below 6% share.
Similar results were recorded worldwide.
What’s behind the primal shrug that Bing seems to have met in the marketplace? Certainly, all the PR hype was successful in getting people curious enough to click through and do a bit of tire-kicking. But it’s obvious that most weren’t particularly impressed by what they experienced, despite the fact that Bing does provide some user-friendly features not available over at Google.
But that’s not nearly enough for success. Google’s users are, by and large, quite satisfied with the search experience. It’s what they know. It’s comfortable. And unless there’s a compelling reason to switch — to change deep-seated habits — most people simply aren’t going to play ball … whether you put millions of dollars in advertising behind your pitch or not.
The folks at Google might have been shaken a least a bit on June 4th when their market share of search dropped to 72%. But they needn’t have worried. Four days later, Google’s share was back up to 80% — where it had been to begin with.
Next case, please?
Nones Notes 
All I have to say is … “bada bing … bada boom.”
Or is it ” … bada doomed.”
Phil- Interesting little blog… Just yesterday I started having trouble with a search — I clicked on a “link to nowhere”… then I followed it up by clicking on another link- same result… Turns out, I was in the BING search engine. One of the Microsoft automatic updates must have switched me over (?) — I’m pleased to say that with a couple additional clicks I was able to return to my “Google comfort-zone”.
[…] Over the years, many things have changed in the world of cyberspace. But one thing seems to be pretty much a constant: When people are in “search” mode online, most of them are playing in Google’s ballpark. […]