Search Engine Sea Change In The Future?

Search engine optimization has for years used Google guidelines and search results to benchmark success. The reason is simple – Google has been the dominant search engine, usually capturing close to 80% of online searches, leaving Yahoo and MSN’s Bing to divide most of the remaining 20% of the online searches. Google has expanded to offer online word processing, spreadsheet and next an operating system (that boots in 7 seconds).

However, the core strength of a search engine is delivering results that are most relevant to to the keyword search. Recent market-testing pitting Yahoo, Bing and Google on various markets by Lightwave Web Design SEO web design techs turned up some interesting situations.

Yahoo and Bing tend to populate more of their top ten with relevant local search results. Google, due to a tendency to reward larger websites, came up with fewer highly-focused local websites and more general websites as results. This tendency may be the force behind the increased usage of 5 to 8 word search terms. How better to weed out the regulars that Google seems to favor than to get as specific as possible?

For instance, for the keyword term “Montana mural artists”, Bing returns 8 of their top 10 with local Montana artists, whereas Google returned 10 national sites that mention Montana artists or famous Montana murals…and two listings for Hannah Montana mural websites. Yahoo’s top ten likewise returned national sites and a representation of Hannah Montana sales sites.

As with any marketing plan, giving the customer what they want is key to future sales and growth. From Lightwave Web Designs semi-statistically significant searches, we think that, dislike the Microsoft Empire as much as you like, once you try Bing and compare search results with Google, you may change your web browsers home page. Wow…firing up Firefox and loading Bing…seems like culture clash, but a rather satisfactory one at that.

Bottom line prognostication: Part of Google’s strength lies in its current “install base” of browsers set to Google as the homepage. As search habit patterns change to reflect people’s appreciation for less time consuming and better search results, Bing will begin to take a larger chunk of the online searches.

Any increase in Bing’s traffic will be a boon to small business websites everywhere. It will also reinforce the Internet’s role as the market leveler – allowing small and new businesses to compete in the largest market place ever.

Ironically, the best way to rank high on Bing search results is to follow all the Google webmaster guidelines and current SEO “white hat” techniques. Lightwave Web Design helps businesses optimize their websites for higher ranking in search engine results on all three search engines.