Bing; noun: a heap or pile; verb: obsolete

When a search engine comes out I at least give it a try and then find myself back at Google.  My first search engine (back in the '90s) was dogpile.com.  Now, like many others, when I want to  search for something I Google it.  Last week I started to Bing it. I have not made the full leap just yet.  Nor have I fully returned to Google.  I decided to try out both at the same time and track how well each did.  The results were mixed.  Since I work in a .NET software development shop I did find Bing to locate the best results for me.  When it came to personal searches and anything outside Microsoft, Google provided the best results.

Next week I plan on using the Blind Search.  Here you can perform a search that will return three results sets: one from Google, one from Bing and one from Yahoo--but you will not know which is which (if you view the source you'll know--so don't cheat!).  Then you vote on the result set you think was best.   I started today and decided to use WebNotes.net to help track how the statistics are changing over time.

The author of Blind Search highlights a few issues with the approach.  However, give Blind Search a try.

Here are my webnote entries for today:

2009/06/07 10:28 - Google: 40%, Bing: 37%, Yahoo: 23% | 2,606 votes

2009/06/07 13:57 - Google: 45%, Bing: 33%, Yahoo: 22% | 9,853 votes

...more later.

I think Bing (commericals) has a lot of potential.  But, I don't see me fully dropping Google either.  Bing got high marks as it ranked internetfacing.com much higher than Google ever has.  :)