We've got Google, Yahoo, and now Bing
 

We've got Google, Yahoo!, Ask Jeeves and Dogpile, among others. Now Microsoft has re-launched its search engine as Bing.com. So, what makes a good search engine name?

A new kid has arrived on the search engine block as you all know, But what makes a great Search engine name, and can we come up with something better??

Microsoft's Bing has joined the web's big-hitters, Google and Yahoo!, in their mission to help internet users navigate the web's resources.

The computer giant hopes the new search, which updates its old MSN search, will help it gain a bigger share of the search market - with Google currently taking 64%, Yahoo! 20% and Microsoft, despite being the biggest player in the software market, a paltry 8.2%.

Among the crop of more recent search enterprises is Wolfram Alpha, a computation knowledge engine named after its creator, Cuil, from the Gaelic for knowledge, and hazel (that's a lowercase "h"). So what makes a successful search engine name?

Part of the beauty of Google as a name is that it has no real meaning, although some believe it comes from .

When "Google" started it was not a universally known word, but it is now a universally known term and is even a verb - to Google. As soon as you try to make it [a name] functional it is less interesting - less memorable."

In fact, Google derives from a functional term, googol - 10 raised to the hundredth power - but this had the benefit of being so little known it didn't confuse the masses.

Another serch site Wolfram Alpha, has only just started but try remembering that, its too long a name and one that you'll find hard to remember, So we come back to "Bing" will it suceed where so many others have failed.

It might explain the rebranding of Ask Jeeves, several years ago, to Ask.com. Although not entirely. Ask.com reverted to its original name earlier this year, and brought back its iconic butler character, after research revealed that users missed his "friendly, human touch".

But with catchy dotcom domain names in short supply - most have already been bought up - any budding search engine creator also needs to think practically about whether a suitable name is available to be bought.

Of course, a snappy name isn't everything - there's also the technology that sits behind it. The CBS-owned Search.com must surely lay claim to the best search name ever, but have you ever used it?

Lets Remember also Bing.com is not a NEW domain :eek: The bing.com domain name was first registered in late January 1996, just one year after yahoo.com and a year before google.com.

In its early incarnation, the name Bing belonged to a Colorado company trying to sell a "personal notification device" it described as "the first practical solution to personal and discrete cell phone ring notification."

So what was this "practical" and "discrete" solution? It was evidently a small contraption that would vibrate remotely when your cell phone rang. "Bing allows a person to keep their Mobile phone in a pocket, purse, briefcase, heavy coat, in another room, or anywhere up to a few hundred feet away, and be notified of a Mobile phone call without attracting attention and without having to 'wear' a clunky phone on his or her hip," an early version of bing.com explained.

By 2006, the Bing notification device had buzzed out of existence and bing.com had gone back to being a parked domain. Toward the end of that year, though, someone else snatched up the domain and tried to put the "cha-ching" back into Bing.

The bing.com domain records were last updated this March and now indicate the site is owned by "Microsoft Corporation" at One Microsoft Way in Redmond. A tiny blue, orange, and white logo has appeared in the site's favicon -- that little square box that pops up next to the URL in your browser -- on and off during the day. It shows a lowercase "b" with a white-outlined orange circle inside.

So it appears that Microsoft didn't come up with the name, Just used one that was already avaialable, just like all things microsoft, I wonder how much they paid for the Domain :eek:

http://web.archive.org/web/200502100.../www.bing.com/
http://web.archive.org/web/200611062...tp://bing.com/
http://web.archive.org/web/200802091...1/au.bing.com/



Take the Poll and we'll see if Bing is a good one, Its a multi vote so tick all that apply ;)

People are just going to stick with Google because of its simplicity

Bing looks too cluttered and it will scare people away

Microsoft will take another L

lets face it - nothing beats google

I think Bing will raise to 2nd place for the next 2-4 years, then we all be tired and jump to the next 'buzzworthy' site :p

2nd place does not count - you either number 1 or nothing :)

Personally i think Bing is a bit of a sad name, its not even original, microsoft bought a second hand domain, as opposed to thinking of a new original name.

The concept might be slightly different, but will it be as popular as google?? I think not, people trust google, they've been around now for 10 odd years and have set the standard as far as serch engines go, Microsoft couldn't even begin to complete with google with their MSN live search, so whats different about it now??

And with that 2nd Hand Domain, thats not a good start.

Google is tops at the moment and looks that way for years to come :up:

<a href="https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=215162" target="_blank">https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/showthread.php?t=215162</a>

it surprises me (for the last years) how many ppl praise Google...

We humans are not even faithful to our waives, how it comes for a website?
once we learn that Google is there for us all the time, we gonna seek new emotions :)

p.s. Hey I don't like to teach technological trends with facts of life but... :p

Well the poll says it all, so far its been voted a miss :eek:

I guess microsoft have been dreaming of a white christmas, like the ones they used to know.........

Poor old Bing

http://www.radioarchives.org/picture...0Vocalists.jpg

:D

Not really but the questions are devised to make it fail in the polls. The Poll really says that people choose not to use it. Most probably haven't even loaded the page on their browser because its owned by the boogeyman, Microsoft.

All the while, the company that has stated several times that personal privacy doesn't exist and they will publish personal information if they find it is praised as the second coming. The company that is trying to purchase all known information for their own profit. 'Do No Evil' went out the window the day Google realized they actually needed to make money to stay in business. That was years ago. Of course, I guess its okay to violate personal privacy and break international copyright law if you have a cute multi-colored logo and offer every webmaster 2 cents per click. Just waiting to see how the anti-trust investigation turns out on Google.

You do realise the name stands for Bing is not google :)

Just like Wine Is Not an Emulator?

Ugh...

I saw a commercial for Bing.com yesterday and it was extremely irritating and annoying. I don't remember anything about it other than that. Terrible marketing, if you ask me.

If it was the same one I saw yesterday that was just a giant mess of words and questions without really saying much about the search engine or anything than I agree, total marketing disaster on that front.

if you see it on a bad way... yes, but maybe IS NOT GOOGLE... (which is now a commercial listing site) told you... why the fanaticism for Google..? Mommy taught me when I was a little iogames that we all are equal :D

p.s. it's spelled 'realize' according to Google

Make you wonder what they are spending their millions on, In th UK its still in beta, and i don't think i've seen any ads as yet, so what do we have so far??

Second hand Domain

Crap advertising

Microsoft is spending some $80 to $100 million on a marketing campaign for Bing, according to Ad Age. That’s huge by any standard, but especially when you consider that Google only spent $25 million on all of its marketing last year. I don’t know what Microsoft plans to spend all that money on, but I get the sneaking suspicion that Bing Crosby will be involved in some way or another. :D

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Yes i know but to be honest over the past 10 years, google has by far set the standard as a great search provider, others try but they don't come close.

Bing is a search engine too and if its going to be popular it has to be better than Google and give a little extra, what people want, otherwise its just live search with a difference.

Heres the ad, I've just found it, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5m2aRJd3CQQ

lately any search query done @ google.com brings 90% spam websites.

IMHO Google aint what it used to be anymore.


edit:
I just realized that with bing you can show more than 21 images results per page. In google, I'm stuck to 21!!! Even having the config set to show 50. Thats annoying.

I agree 100% with that, Google needs to improve somewhat, Bing has some great ideas in the different info it gives you, lets hope that Microsoft adapt and mould the idea into what people want as well as what they need.

But, to be honest using a second hand domain, for such a large project and having all those millions to spend on advertising, let face it, they bought a second hand domain and the TV ad looks like it was made with a buget of $100 and not $100,000,000

I'll be keeping an eye on this ;)

so critical of Bing so soft with Google... even my dog bark at Bing because it doesn't know nothing about it...

I will be faithful to google when they remove eBays & Wikipedia's pollution...

Please don't lecture me about how to speak my country's language :) We use -ise instead of -ize on most words.

Nicely Said Dean ;) :D:D

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True, Apparently a few years back ebay fell out with google but have in the last few years come back and started working with google :erm:

Oh no! it wasn't my intention to lecture you... just to demonstrate you that when a blackhole collapse with a M&M the waves coming from the event must range from the the Beatles' tones to a dolphin snore... :rolleyes:

let Bing be its own hangman... and ours to create a better community, to expand our effort better than Wordpress :)

nothing will break google ;)

Thats what i thought, Google have gotten too big and powerful to break :cool:

I've heard the same words once upon a time regarding Microsoft.

still remember like it was yesterday :rolleyes:

Google was registered back in the 90's when a lot of the "good" domains were not already taken. Nowadays you'd be very lucky to own a domain like bing.com

I personally have made the switch to bing. Like Wayne said, how google handles our privacy is terrible.

I think people are quick to judge bing because it is a microsoft product. I'm actually enjoying using bing now. No more wikipedia as the very first result on every page, and the bing image search is brilliant.

I dunno where I heard or read:

Zing.

How about

Bling

http://open.salon.com/blog/silkstone...1233607244.jpg

:D:D

Personally I use ixquick.com as a search service --- which has a real privacy protection policy, and does not log IP's.

As for future names:

blergh.com, or blag.com *, or maybe blech.com?

* suitable for some search engine sites, no?

Personally i dont like 'bing' as its removed all of the links to my site apart from a link to the sitemap of all things, which is infract not even the correct link.

Your ISP logs all your search queries anyway :)

For me, Bing for the win. I've switched to it... and switched all of the computers at school to it.... :P It's somewhat faster than Google, and the nice picture soothes me. Google to me is boring.

I was suprised at how many hits I had from Bing in the first week.

Wonder how this new engine will fair : http://duckduckgo.com nice to get results and no other garbage on the page.