For those around who still care about the other search engines, Microsoft launched their highly anticipated new search engine called Bing. Touted as the Decision Engine, Microsoft has high hopes for Bing in challenging the Google juggernaut from increasing its market share.

At first glance, Bing provides offers up a simple search interface (a lot like Google). The search results display is clean (like Google) and of course the name is catchy (much like Google).

But what about relevancy?

Like most things in life, if you can’t give people what they want, they’ll go elsewhere or at the very least stay where they are.

From the few hundred searches we’ve done so far, the relevancy appears to be slightly better than the old Live results. However, Bing, like Live, places a lot of weight on the domain name, especially for generic terms. The end result: You get a lot more websites like www.car-rental-sydney.com showing up for queries like ‘Sydney car hire’ (see the second organic listing in the example below). On other words, many websites with keyword optimised URLs gain more awareness than they deserve, largely based on the domain name.

Can Bing win market share from Google?

With Google’s growing market dominance there are plenty of people who’d like to see a more equitable split between Microsoft, Yahoo and Google, especially in Australia where we have more than enough de facto monopolies. More competition would be a win for all of us, even Google as it would help keep them honest and their egos from getting too big.

Unfortunately, Bing’s results are not ground breaking enough to supplant Google. In fact, I’d argue Microsoft still has a lot of work to do improve relevancy. We found a number of irrelevant results that left us scratching our heads.

A search in Australia for ‘amplify’ returns old pages no longer live on our site! Clearly an updated index is badly needed. Searches on ‘health insurance’ and ‘travel’ in Australia returns positively bizarre results. Try it for yourself and see how Bing’s results compare to Google’s. Like us you’ll likely agree Microsoft has a lot of work on its plate to challenge Google.

Even if Bing improves the relevancy of their search results though, one has to wonder whether it will be enough to make people switch. We are, after all, creatures of habit. If it’s not broken, there’s very little chance Bing will make much of a dent, even with the expected marketing weight of Microsoft behind it.

What does Bing mean for Search Engine Optimisation (SEO)?

The short answer is not much… at least not today. While, I’m certain the Microsoft engineers will be tweaking the algorithm to improve relevancy over the coming weeks, the pessimist in me doesn’t believe it will be much help. Google isn’t broken and unless you have something better – and better out of the gate when you’ve got max visibility –  it’s just not going to be enough to make us Bing.

However, if Bing does manage to wrestle some of Google’s search market share away, the entire search marketing industry may have to invent a new service called Decision Engine Optimisation (DEO)! We can only hope…

Google Australia just released its ‘Australian Year-End Zeitgeist Highlights Hot Searches in 2007‘ (try saying that quickly 3 times); a summary of what Australians searched online in the past year.

The Fastest Rising Keyword Searches

No surprise, social networking sites make a up a large part of Google’s fastest rising search queries in 07, most notably: Facebook, YouTube, MySpace and Bebo. And if Aussies weren’t chatting with friends, looking at videos or sharing their lives through pokes and ranking their ‘top friends’, they were trying to escape – dreaming of owning an iPhone, jetting off on a cheap Tiger Air flight to Asia, trying to catch up on the Rugby World Cup, or getting the latest update on their favourite fantasy show like Heroes or the ABC’s brilliant Summer Heights High (Yes! That made the list too!)

Channel Seven – Winning the TV Wars!

If Google searches are anything to go on, then you would have to conclude Channel Seven is tops while Nine is all but irrelevant! Out of the top ten searched shows on Google, Seven had 6, including: Heroes, Today Tonight, Home and Away, Prison Break, Lost and Grey’s Anatomy. Channel Ten followed with its two hot media properties, Big Brother and the ever-popular Australian Idol, while the ABC’s Summer Heights High and SBS’ Top Gear rounded out the top ten. Where did it all go wrong Eddie?

Paris, Britney… The Whole Gang’s Here!

As you’d expect, Paris Hilton and Britney Spears were top of mind in celebrity searches for 2007 – the Internet’s equivalent of the 18 car pile up (you can’t help but look, but you should really just move on!) Rihanna and Justin brought sexy back, John Howard didn’t, Steve Irwin will be fondly missed and Anna Nicole Smith closed out her 15 minutes on a sad note. What a year it’s been!

 For more insights on what Australians searched in 2007, check out the rest of Google Australia’s Search Highlights for 2007 right here.