Indeed, Microsoft has said that with its relaunched search engine the company is actually focusing on four core areas—travel, health, local and shopping. And, in two of those areas—health and travel—Citigroup says that Microsoft usually returns results that are more relevant than its rivals (The investment bank does not look at shopping). That’s certainly an indication that Microsoft’s attempt to position itself as a “decision engine” around those areas is working.

It’s also worth noting that “relevance” is difficult to define. What may be the most relevant result to Citigroup researchers may not actually be the most relevant result to another searcher. Citigroup says it picked winners for each of its queries based on “relevancy of the organic search results” as well as the “robustness of the search experience, which included factors such as image and video inclusion, Search Assist, and Site Breakout.” That sounds very subjective.

For its part, Microsoft has unsurprisingly insisted that its own metrics show that its search engine produces results as relevant as Google’s.