Once upon a time the word “Bing” conjured up the image of a certain popular musician. Nowadays, however, as a result of an intensive media campaign, it is an interesting new feature of Internet business as a new search engine provided by Microsoft. Even though Google continues to be by far the biggest player in this sphere, it is conceivable that Bing may catch up and give Google a run for their money. There are numerous people who work from home or for various enterprises in online jobs specialising in search engine optimization, and such people may have to begin taking account of how Bing operates.

Certain people may believe that this is history repeating itself. Recall that in the 1990s, by far the best known browser was Netscape Navigator. That was before Bill Gates’ company brought out Internet Explorer, which quickly became the standard browser, and Netscape disappeared from view. So the fact that Microsoft has recently taken an interest in the search engine sphere will probably cause some worries at Google.

Naturally, in the very competitive sphere of Internet business, cost is a crucial issue. Since Microsoft included Internet Explorer as a part of Windows 98, PC buyers no longer had to acquire another browser, to get onto the Web. Henceforth other browsers could only compete when offered to people for free. Therefore while other browsers exist in addition to Internet Explorer, and indeed programmers could work from home to write a different one, they are not going to make a living for anyone.

Search engines are also free. You don’t pay a penny to input a search term when looking for online jobs, commercial companies, news items or anything else. So the money to be made from search engines comes wholly from advertising. Therefore, the way in which the market for browsers was altered in favour of Internet Explorer is not likely to occur in the same way with Bing.

A lot of search engines have fallen by the wayside, and some are still around yet seem unable to dent Google’s position. Three years ago the Ask company introduced an advertising campaign in the UK, and yet it still only gets about one twentieth of the market. Just one more search engine seemed unlikely to take on Google, so Bing is marketed as a “decision engine”.

What does this mean in practice? For example, if I wish to work from home and am looking for “online jobs” in which I am able to use the Web to make money. If I input this keyword into Google and into Bing, the search listings are roughly similar. Nevertheless, Bing gives a list of related search terms down the left-hand margin of the results, for example “work from home online jobs”, or “Job Center Online” (I’m not sure why it’s giving me the American spelling, though!), and this could be useful if I didn’t get the exact thing I wanted on the initial try. Likewise if I key in “restaurants Bedford”, the list of other terms thoughtfully includes “restaurants in Bedford MA”, just in case I decide to hop on the next plane to Massachussets the next time I dine out. When I do this, of course, Bing Travel has a “price predictor” service, helping me to find the best deal on my next air fare.

Will Bing succeed in taking on Google and win a large proportion of the market? Perhaps it could be beneficial for Internet business to have a bit of real competition in the search engine market. Time will tell if this this is the reality, in the contest between these two giants, Microsoft and Google.