A survey carried out by SurveyMonkey, asked participants to choose which one they preferred – Bing results labeled as Google and Google results labeled as Bing results. The majority of people preferred the results labeled Google. The course of the study and its outcome has been described below.
Course of the study: The study was conducted in the following manner:
- A group of participants were gathered and were shown a few search results for a particular keyword.
- Now these participant were shown Bing and Google results for the same keyword.
- However the game was not played fair. Half of the participants were shown Google results, labeled as Google and Bing results, labeled as Bing.
- The other half was shown Google results labeled as Bing and Bing results labeled as Google, in order to find out whether the quality of results were more important to them or its brand name.
Outcome of the study: The results of the study were as follows:
- The first group of participants, who were shown results where Google was labeled Google and Bing was labeled Bing chose results labeled Google over results labeled Bing.
- The second group of participants, who were shown results where Google results were labeled Bing and Bing results were labeled Google also chose results labeled Google over results labeled Bing.
- Anyhow, there was an irony in the results – Bing results labeled Google, were searched more than Google results labeled Google in the first case.
- Thus, the outcome of the whole situation is the Google has a better brand name and is preferred more by people, but Bing results seem to be more useful since they were searched more after changing their label.
Bing.com describes it ‘Conformation Bias’. According to a news published by them on their official website, they say that they are better than Google but since Google has a better brand reputation, it is preferred more.
This is one claim I am inclined to agree with Bing. Brand names do matter when consumers decide on the quality. What do you think?
