Google and Microsoft Still Squawking Over Search Tactics, Does Anyone Care?

Posted 02/03/2011 at 8:13am | by Paul Lilly

4

Comments

Print

One of the top cats in charge of Google's search engine ranking algorithm created quite the controversy the other day when he called out Microsoft's Bing search engine for supposedly copying Google's search results. That accusation didn't sit well with Microsoft, who went on to deny the charge and chalked the comments up to a "back-handed compliment," albeit one that "doesn't accurately portray how [Bing] uses opt-in customer data as one of many inputs to help improve [the] user experience."

Having now had a couple of days to seethe over the situation, Microsoft is still ticked off and wants to set the record straight in no uncertain language.

"Let me clear up a few things once and for all. We do not copy results from any of our competitors. Period. Full Stop," Yusuf Mehdi, Senior Vice President, Microsoft's Online Services Division, wrote in a blog post. "We have some of the best minds in the world at work on search quality and relevance, and for a competitor to accuse any one of these people of such activity is just insulting.

"We do look at anonymous click stream data as one of more than a thousand inputs into our ranking algorithm. We learn from our customers as they traverse the Web, a common practice in helping to improve a wide array of online services. We have been clear about this for a couple of years (see Directions on Microsoft report, June 15, 2009)."

The Bing Team went on to accuse Google of engaging in a "honeypot" attack to trick Bing, saying the so-called "'experiment' was rigged to manipulate Bing search results through a type of attack also known as 'click fraud,' That's right, the same type of attack employed by spammers on the Web to trick consumers and produce bogus search results. What does all this cloak and dagger click fraud prove? Nothing anyone in the industry doesn't already know."

At this point, we can't help but be reminded of a heated forum spat in which only the two attacking each other really care about the topic. Do you take issue with Microsoft or Google in this fracas, or could you care less? While we're at it, what's your search engine of choice?

Image Credit: googleblogging.com