Bing vs. Google: a small comparison

This is a small comparison between Google and Microsoft's new search engine Bing. I tried to compare most used features for web search and results quality. Quality of image and video search like common services would be the point of next article.

Google's goal is simplicity and experience. Google's huge stats make available to find relation between different search terms. Bing's goal is Curiosity. People want to see what can a Google-competitor search engine do.

A search for a not very popular poet who writes in a not very popular language gives very different results on both engines. Google ranked old sites (mostly non english) higher and Bing ranked popular sites (mostly in english) higher. Not happy! Google's results were not up2date(older is not better always) and Bing's results were not multi-aspect.

A search for "Michael Jackson":

Google finds 120 mio results
Bing finds 108 mio results

Most of results are similar on both search engines.

Google and Bing include local maps, image and video results.

Bing shows search popularity for given string, but when you click on the graphic, MS wants to download & install "Silverlight.exe" without inform you about Silverlight first and ask you if you want to install(typical MS).

Bing shows geoip related results without asking to select your location or language. For example if you are coming from Germany, Bing ranks Germany and german related results higher. But if you are an english speaking person from Germany or just some one who uses a german proxy, there is not a simple -one click- option to change to bing.de or vice versa.

Google's autocomplete engine is better.

Google's suggestion engine is better(Did you mean ...).

Google can search alternatives, misspelled words, singular+plural much better than Bing.

Bing uses more javascript.

Ad placement is similar on both search engines (top + right sidebar)

Bing uses web2 style background images, Google does not use extra images, but different logos.

Bings page navigation is easier to click on.

Bing shows a mouseover text preview with ajax, but action area is hidden, could be better with a zoom or info icon.

Google lists second or multiple results from same domain unter the first one.

Bing lists second or multiple results from same domain as a seperate item.

Bing has no language tools / translation services.

Bing lists top results from categorized related searchs.

Index page(just HTML):
Google : 7kb
Bing : 28kb

Max results per page:
Google: 100
Bing: 50