Google vs. Bing: The Digital Heavyweight Championship

Google is everywhere you look. Every SEO specialist is talking about Google this or Google that. Then there’s paid search and banner advertising, all of which is dominated by Google Adwords.
So now that begs the question: why does everyone care so much about Google? There are plenty of other search engines around the web. Why should you spend so much of your time worrying about the Google search algorithm or mastering their targeting options?

Today, let’s put Google up against it’s biggest competition, Bing.

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Google: The Search Powerhouse

Google is the market leader, and a massive powerhouse in the search industry. Here are some relevant statistics you need to know:

• Google has about 1.17 billion unique monthly searches.
• Google owns about 67.5% of the U.S. search market share. Mobile search market share is even higher, sitting at around 87.1%.
• Just under 50% of Google searches are from the US, meaning Google has a worldwide reach.
• Google also holds the majority of search market share in all countries except Russia China, South Korea, and Japan.

If you’re interested in fact checking me, you can find my source here.

Let’s take a little closer look at these statistics and what they mean.

Of course, Google has a lot higher volume of people searching online. This is applicable to both paid and organic search traffic. Google Search is a powerful channel for marketers who need to generate a large-scale campaign, or even reaching international audiences.
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It’s important to keep in mind, however, that Google isn’t assured to be the market leader forever. Their hold on search market share has actually fallen over the past few years. Admittedly, it’s nothing drastic. Previously they have fallen from about 72% to about 65%, but those numbers did increase to about 67.5% last year.

Now, let’s take a look at Bing, Google’s biggest competition for search.

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Bing: The Contender

Like I’ve said, Bing is the biggest contender in the fight for search market share. Here are a few relevant statistics you need to know:

• Bing is slowly, steadily increasing its share of search. The most updated statistics It’s sitting at about 17.9%.
• 85% of people who use Bing are in the US.
• 87% of Bing users come from the Internet Explorer browser.

If you’re interested in fact checking me again, you can find my source here.

Let’s take a little closer look at these statistics and what they mean.

Obviously, Bing doesn’t have the massive reach that Google has. It doesn’t have the capability to reach the same US or international audiences. That’s one of the biggest drawbacks to Bing.
Bing does have a pretty decent outlook, and it’s making a number of inroads with significant business partners. For instance, Twitter is already using Bing to translate tweets for a number of different languages. There is also news that Apple may cancel a deal that sets Google as the default search provider in the Safari browser, replacing it with Bing.

Bing is already the search provider used by Siri and the spotlight search for OS X Yosemite.

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And the winner is . . .

As you were probably thinking, it’s Google.
Google dominates the share of both US and International online searches. The site is also the highest trafficked site on the internet. For the foreseeable future, Google doesn’t have any truly significant competition.
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This is why marketers focus on Google for SEO and SEM.

That doesn’t, however, mean that you should completely ignore other search engines. An Adgooroo study from 2013 found that Bing’s cost-per-click averaged at about $1.07 per click, while Google was averaging at about $1.83 per click. There are also fewer advertisers on Bing, giving you a better chance of being noticed by prospects.
Blog: Google’s 5 Factors of Viewability

Just because Bing has less traffic doesn’t mean you can’t still find valuable prospects.

While Google may be everywhere you look, its dominance isn’t guaranteed forever. But for the foreseeable future, Google will continue to be a major player in digital advertising and SEO. The next biggest competition still isn’t even close.

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