BING caught cheating, GOOGLE resullts

[dealzoid]

Google has run a sting operation that it says proves Bing has been watching what people search for on Google, the sites they select from Google?s results, then uses that information to improve Bing?s own search listings. Bing doesn?t deny this.
As a result of the apparent monitoring, Bing?s relevancy is potentially improving (or getting worse) on the back of Google?s own work. Google likens it to the digital equivalent of Bing leaning over during an exam and copying off of Google?s test.
?I?ve spent my career in pursuit of a good search engine,? says Amit Singhal, a Google Fellow who oversees the search engine?s ranking algorithm. ?I?ve got no problem with a competitor developing an innovative algorithm. But copying is not innovation, in my book.?
Bing doesn?t deny Google?s claim. Indeed, the statement that Stefan Weitz, director of Microsoft?s Bing search engine, emailed me yesterday as I worked on this article seems to confirm the allegation:

As you might imagine, we use multiple signals and approaches when we think about ranking, but like the rest of the players in this industry, we?re not going to go deep and detailed in how we do it. Clearly, the overarching goal is to do a better job determining the intent of the search, so we can guess at the best and most relevant answer to a given query.

Opt-in programs like the [Bing] toolbar help us with clickstream data, one of many input signals we and other search engines use to help rank sites. This ?Google experiment? seems like a hack to confuse and manipulate some of these signals.

Later today, I?ll likely have a more detailed response from Bing. Microsoft wanted to talk further after a search event it is hosting today. More about that event, and how I came to be reporting on Google?s findings just before it began, comes at the end of this story. But first, here?s how Google?s investigation unfolded.

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