Bing Social vs Google Search Plus Your World: Feature Showdown
The battle between Bing and Google is getting personal, with both search engines fighting to become more socially connected. Microsoft recently added social features to Bing in response to Google’s January rollout of Search Plus Your World (SPYW). Both forays into social integration try to bring your friends and connections into your searches to help uncover references you might not find otherwise.
But Bing and Google are taking different routes to incorporate social features into search. Google is going heavy on Google+ and blending social content right into its results, while Bing says it wants to keep search results “pure” and cordon off its Facebook-focused social features to the sidebar.
PCWorld’s comprehensive review of Bing’s social additions is coming soon, but until then here’s a feature showdown between Google’s SPYW and Bing’s social features (BSF).
SPYW vs BSF: A Quick Breakdown
Google’s SPYW results are broken down into three columns. On the far left, you have Google’s navigation column for modifying search results into as image searches, news searches, and time-specific searches such as data from the past month or year. Google’s center column features its regular search results along with links and other data pulled from your own posts and your circles on Google+. To the right of Google’s main search results is a space to show Google+ content, such as product pages, popular videos, images, or public posts related to your search.
The new BSF features a main column of results, and to its left is space for a column called the snapshot. Snapshot pops out from links in the main search results and surfaces actionable information such as hotel rates, maps, online reservation tools, and restaurant reviews. To the far right is Bing’s new sidebar, which shows relevant social information including posts from Facebook friends, experts from around the Web, and your friends’ activity on Bing.
Search Results: The Purity Test
Bing says its new social integration will not affect its search results. “Instead of cluttering your results with social updates, we’re honoring the purity of the core web results,” Microsoft says in a blog post announcing the social overhaul.
Google, on the other hand, has not been shy about significantly changing what shows up in its main search results.
Take, for example, a search for the HBO show Game of Thrones. My personalized search results included items you’d expect such as links to the official series site and Wikipedia. But I also got images related to Game of Thrones that have been shared on Google+, posts from connections on Google’s social network, and relevant links that were shared by my Google+ connections.
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