I'd play devil's advocate here and say that I give Bing a slight benefit of the doubt. Given they cannot perform a parallel Google search on every single user query (this would have been easiest to spot), the technique cannot be of the form "if on google, do x". Rather, it is likely they look at what users search and what results they get as one of the parameters, say normally influencing 0.2% of the search ordering on average (assuming 500 "signals"). In the case of "torsorophy", out of the 500 "signals" only one came up, the Google result (via Bing toolbar from a few users). So, their algorithm makes a note of that, like, hmm... I don't really have anything else so I'd just rehash what users have searched and subsequently visited. So the 0.2% becomes 100%, and internally Bing associates the word "torsorophy" with that website. Next time "torsorophy" is searched it returns that site.
Yes, Bing is likely using Google's data (if available, via Bing toolbar) as part of the ingredients. You can argue whether this is stealing or not, whether this is Google results or user search/visit behavior, and but I would say it isn't exactly "if on google, do x".
> I would say it isn't exactly "if on google, do x".
I wish bing had taken this opportunity to answer that question in this blog post. Since they didn't, it makes me more likely to assume the worst. All they would have to say is something like "We use anonymized click data and don't special case Google" to avoid most of the controversy. Then we would be back to debating whether it is ethical to do something theoretically ok even if you know that it practically means you'll be cribbing from a competitor.
One thing is sure. This episode makes Microsoft look like a cheater, but also Google like a child. I rather Google spend more time on combating search spam and content farms than this concerted "caught-in-the-act" ambush. Instead, Google likes to cheapen themselves with endless argument with everyone (how supporting WebM and Flash is open, how the iPhone world is "draconian", etc).
Just call it "imitation is the most sincere form of flattery" and be done with it, would you, Google? Spend your time improving UI, defend your cash cow against spam, focus on making Android better, be more coherent in your social/location strategies, lead the industry in privacy (not just talk of privacy). All of these will benefit users more.
It is all fun and games, and a bit childish. Obviously google are not offended, just trying to get some PR about it - just business.
But the argument "I rather Google spend.." can be applied to anything - it isn't as if they haven't be tackling other problems, and they are clearly worried about bing (at least in PR, bing spends big - lots of MS employees posting on forums, including here, which I am sure is encouraged). Bing is losing a lot of money for Microsoft, so by that token, I could say that they should stop it, and spend money on xbox (which is fantastic - no idea if it is losing money, but what a leader) - make it stupidly cheap, make it dominate the home etc ...
You can also argue that Bing fits in the "offense is the best defense" category. Hit Google where it hurts so Google can't cannibalize MSFT's core business as quickly. From a customer's perspective, it keeps Google honest.
Why should Google improve their search spam algorithm? Would they gain anything if MSFT then their compares their own results against Google's, to delete the spam farms thanks to Google's work?
I can't agree with that. You always want to improve, even if there is no "competition". Don't worry much about competitors that only imitate, but pay attention to those who innovate and exceed you. So, exceed yourself before others do.
> "the technique cannot be of the form 'if on google, do x' ... Rather, it is likely they look at what users search and what results they get"
How do they look at what a user searches and what result they get? Ok, the "click stream" can see what pages a user visits.
But to get the search term, they are parsing something, and unless they implemented a universal search recognizer that will rank up results from any old site's search (allowing 20 SEO guys to push private SERPs to the top), it seems more than probable the parser indeed would start with "if on google, do x".
Most referrers do not contain search terms. You can't look at REFERER and infer it indicates the subsequent URL is correlated on a given keyword. If that's what you want, you write a parser to look at URLs, recognize human-determined search indicators (q=, s=, search=), and correlate the subsequent URL with the indicated keywords.
Hand waving that this is "clickstream" data doesn't mean Bing is not looking specifically for Googled search terms and the resultant user selected URLs.
I personally don't mind them doing it. I just think their post is non-responsive in hopes of persuading the non-technical reader there's "no deliberate copying to see here" when they're clearly intentionally ingesting an extraordinary volume of Google-keyword-to-Google-result data and using that data to map keywords seen only on Google to results on Bing.
If Google analytics can scrape this data, so can bing.
Google never answered if they are using clickstream from google toolbar / chrome or not.
Check this simple script if you want same data.
http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=1680579&...
Yes, Bing is likely using Google's data (if available, via Bing toolbar) as part of the ingredients. You can argue whether this is stealing or not, whether this is Google results or user search/visit behavior, and but I would say it isn't exactly "if on google, do x".