Bing overtakes Yahoo for No. 2 in search

By Fahmida Y. Rashid Published May 17, 2011

It was inevitable. As Yahoo began transitioning to using Bing to power its search engine, the No. 2 search engine had to lose market share.

According to Nielsen report of the US search market, Microsoft search service which include Bing, MSN, and Windows Live, inched past Yahoo to take 13.9 percent of all US searches, compared to Yahoo’s 13.1 percent. This report reflects only “intentional searches,” or queries typed directly into a search box. It does not include contextual searches automatically generated based on a person’s browsing behavior.

Recommended Videos

Microsoft has been aggressively growing its search offerings and adding new features over the past few months. The numbers also reflect Bing and Yahoo’s 2009 agreement to have Bing power Yahoo’s search engine. For users, the same search technology means the results on these two pages will be the same; it’s only the front-end experience that varies. And at the moment, users are using Yahoo’s services less.

Google remains the king of search, commanding 65 percent of the market.

Although Nielsen’s numbers give Microsoft the No. 2 slot for August, the more widely cited (and accepted) Comscore numbers showed Yahoo still led significantly over Microsoft in July. Comscore’s figures excludes slideshows that can artifically inflate numbers. It seems unlikely that the lead shrunk that dramatically in one month to bump Bing ahead of Yahoo.

The official switchover began in August but transition is not expected to complete until 2012.

Topics

Fahmida Y. Rashid

Former Digital Trends Contributor

Computing

Microsoft may have ignored warnings about Bing Chat’s unhinged responses

Bing Chat saying it wants to be human.

Microsoft's Bing Chat is in a much better place than it was when it released in February, but it's hard to overlook the issues the GPT-4-powered chatbot had when it released. It told us it wanted to be human, after all, and often broke down into unhinged responses. And according to a new report, Microsoft was warned about these types of responses and decided to release Bing Chat anyway.

According to the Wall Street Journal, OpenAI, the company behind ChatGPT and the GPT-4 model powering Bing Chat, warned Microsoft about integrating its early AI model into Bing Chat. Specifically, OpenAI flagged "inaccurate or bizarre" responses, which Microsoft seems to have ignored.

Computing

Google’s ChatGPT rival just launched in search. Here’s how to try it

Generative AI in Google Search.

Ever since Microsoft started integrating ChatGPT into Bing search, alarm bells have been ringing at Google. Now, though, the tech giant has started rolling out its own generative artificial intelligence (AI) tool for users as part of its bid to retain its search crown.

In a blog post, the company explains that the new feature (called Search Generative Experience, or SGE) is part of Google’s Search Labs, which lets you test out experimental ideas in Google search and provide feedback to the company. Google says its generative AI will “help you take some of the work out of searching, so you can understand a topic faster, uncover new viewpoints and insights and get things done more easily.”

Computing

The Windows Copilot puts Bing Chat in every Windows 11 computer

Copilot in Windows being used in the side panel.

Announced at Microsoft Build 2023, Windows will now have its own dedicated AI "copilot" that can be docked right into a side panel that can stay persistent while using other applications and aspects of the operating system.

Microsoft has been highly invested in AI over these recent months, and it was only a matter of time before it came to Windows. The time is now -- and it's coming in a big way.