Of course what is most important in search is the quality of the results. Does Microsoft find more appropriate matches? Not that I can tell. Some matches are similar, and some which show up highly on one search site are missing from the other. However, if one set of matches is significantly more appropriate for the terms searched, it escapes me. The results look very similar.

Herein lies the rub. A few years ago, Microsoft followed Google Books with their own Live Books. When we reviewed it a year and a half ago, we were surprised to find that we liked the Microsoft version a little more. It was not only more attractive, but a bit more user friendly. Six months later, Microsoft threw in the towel. They had invested in scanning some 700,000 volumes at the time, but still couldn't get the traffic to justify further investment. Now, Microsoft comes back at Google with a new search engine that is remarkably similar. Time was, Microsoft, with their software on virtually everyone's computer who didn't own an Apple, could provide a similar or even inferior product, such as an internet browser of spreadsheet, and quickly come to dominate the field. Not with Google. Google is not Netscape, not Lotus 1-2-3. Google dominates the field, and not even Microsoft can challenge them without a vastly superior product. Bing, like Live Search, is nice, but is not significantly better or even different. It offers no particular reason to stop Googling and start Binging. Without that, people are unlikely to change longstanding habits. Keep an eye on Bing for a few extra hits, but we recommend you continue to optimize your website for Google.

Postscript: For those concerned that Microsoft is picking on Google, going after its bread-and-butter application, it should be noted that Google plans to expand its Chrome internet browser into a free Operating System in 2010. Microsoft's very existence is based on selling its paid operating system, just as Google's existence is dependent on people using their search engine to search the internet.

Editor's Note: See Letter to the Editor for a comment regarding non-American searchers.