Comments on: Bingo! Microsoft’s Search Share Keeps Going Up

By: Ed Dunn

Ed Dunn — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:58:44 +0000

Ok, I see the point about Steve Ballmer using “search market share” as a metric. Maybe someone in Microsoft need to sit Mr. Ballmer down and explain to him the flaws of this approach.

Arslan explained it best – Google is better and until Steve Ballmer realize he is chasing metrics he did not define, it will continue to be that way.

By: arslan

arslan — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 18:15:16 +0000

but still google is batter.

By: Joseph Tartakoff

Joseph Tartakoff — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:42:22 +0000

And I’ll add one more here — since our edit function apparently isn’t working:

– Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has said he will measure Bing’s success by its market share figures so it only makes sense to highlight these figures.

By: Joseph Tartakoff

Joseph Tartakoff — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 16:39:53 +0000

Why don’t you think it matters?

Here are a few reasons why I think these trends matter (and I mean trends; so looking at them over several months instead of month to month).

– Big questions these trends answer: Are consumers still going to Google even in the midst of this onslaught of competition from Microsoft (ie is Google losing its overwhelming dominance?) Is Microsoft’s big ad campaign paying off?
– Money: Greater search share generally correlates with greater revenue for these companies. That’s significant.
– Quality of results: Microsoft’s argument for awhile has been that the more market share they have the better quality of results they can produce — which in turn should lead to greater market share for Bing etc. So if their share is going up it may make that more likely to happen.

By: Ed Dunn

Ed Dunn — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 15:25:37 +0000

I wish someone could explain why this “search market share” matters without resorting to speculative commentary. I have long argued and proposed that this “search market share” is just fodder for writers but has very little business merits. The interesting thing is, no one will step up and embarrass themselves to explain what this whole “search market share” metric matters at the end of the day.