The Visual Study of Google and Bing
February 1, 2011
WebProNews caught our attention. We have been looking at screenshots of Fast ESP Version 5.x circa 2007 and the screenshots for the Microsoft Fast Search Server. Even the goslings see some big similarities. We even asked, “What happened to Mars, the Java based replacement for Fast 5.x?” Might be still there, lurking under the UX or user experience.
“Google Edges Bing For Visual Attention” explains a study conducted by User Centric. The research firm compared the two search giants to examine how long users viewed each part of the search results page. The top three paid links on Google’s website attract more attention than Bing’s and users spent more time reading Google’s basic search results than on Bing.
“Taking longer to make a decision and scanning more results may suggest lower perceived search results relevancy on Google. According to past research, users tend to scan search results until they find the first suitable link to click, so more time spent on Google could mean it took longer to find a link worth clicking.”
Are search engine designers more interested in how the results are displayed than actual relevancy? While user experience is important, it accounts for nothing if returned results do not have the appropriate information. Precision and recall are the best ways for any search engine to operate.
We think that precision and recall are important. Slapping a fancy face on any system—Bing, Google, whatever—is secondary to the quality of the search results.
Whitney Grace, February 1, 2011
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2 Responses to “The Visual Study of Google and Bing”
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Away with you, Microsoft Shill. Google runs experiments all the time–they do not manipulate their results without, otherwise Bing wouldn’t try to copy them.
If they weren’t in control of what they do, they could get into legal trouble.