Bing: Why Google’s Wrong In Its Accusations

http://searchengineland.com/bing-why-googles-wrong-in-its-accusations-63279

by HardyLeung • 15 years ago

56 69 15 years ago

kenjackson2• 15 years ago

Good article (a surprisingly heartfelt article -- odd for a tech blog). Key paragraphs: Bing says it does NOT do this. It says there is no Google specific search signal that it being used, no list of all the popular pages as selected just by Google users. Instead, it has a 'search signal' based on searching activity observed across a range of sites.

For example, if you did a search on Amazon, Bing might detect that. A search on eBay might get spotted. A search on Yahoo, that also might get extracted. Any number of searches might be identified. Bing would associate the next page you went to after doing those searches as being a possible 'answer' to those searches.

o_nate• 15 years ago

I think comparisons to Amazon or eBay search are misleading. Amazon only indexes and searches its own site - the same goes for eBay. So of course these companies wouldn't mind if Bing copied some of their search results - after all, this would only end up driving more traffic to their sites - since their search results link back to their own sites.

It's a much different case when Microsoft is copying search results from Google or another whole-web search site. There Microsoft is directly competing with their product, and the bottom-line is that it's fundamentally fishy for Microsoft to be using their own search results against them.

encoderer4• 15 years ago

Copying search results. I love the notion of that.

Somewhere in the world at this moment there's a person with the Bing Toolbar installed searching for something using Google. One of his results is to a website, for the sake of narrative lets suppose it's one of our own: A YC startup.

The searcher clicks to the YC startup, it's exactly what he's looking for, he converts.

Now, another searcher, using Bing by choice, searches that same term. That YC startup is in the results. The click is made, another conversion happens.

The first user consented to his click analysis by installing the toolbar.

The startup will surely agree that yes, we are a very good result for that term! We should show up on Bing, DDG, Google, Whatever! And we don't care how we get there!

The second user gets a result that's maybe ranked higher because of the first users click was noticed by Bing.

Google doesn't lose a customer because the second searcher was already on Bing to begin with.

Bing does nothing but analyze their own users' behavior (users of their toolbar) to deliver better results.

I find controversy over this beyond absurd.

moultano5• 15 years ago

So it somehow eluded them that most of the searches done anywhere are done on Google? I don't buy it. If you have a "search signal" it's going to be effectively a "Google signal," and they aren't being honest if they contend otherwise.

nollidge• 15 years ago

They didn't say "web search", they said "search". Nearly every website has a search box. Most of my searches in any given day are not on Google - they're on Amazon, Wikipedia, Netflix, StackOverflow, Facebook, etc. Bing's toolbar is watching all of those.

rbanffy2• 15 years ago

Most of the searches I do are on the firefox search field. If I want to search within a specific site, I use the "site:" parameter to restrict results by domain.

joshu• 15 years ago

you realize they have to have some system for figuring out which GET parameter matches the search box? there are lots of sites that have varying GET parameters. so that means someone had to decide, BY HAND, what parameter was the right one.

there's no way they are just magically doing this for "every" search box on the web.

ChuckMcM2• 15 years ago

Given that Bing clearly uses the clickstream to influence its results pages, at what point to SEO folks run farms of machines in a network which resolve 'google.com' to a process that returns a fixed set of results for a given query?

Imagine this scenario, I create 10,000 VM instances of windows running IE8 with the Bing toolbar. I create a local host to 'stand in' for Google such that it emulates the actual Google site (one could even used scraped Google content) and for my 'target' query it returns my spammy results, and then my VM machine clicks on one of the spammy links.

It seems that Google's sting worked because their queries had small return rates, but with some resources it would seem a viable way to inject SEO love right into the bloodstream of Bing's ranking algorithm. As I see it, a whole new front just opened up for spammers.

--Chuck

dminor• 15 years ago

Sure, but I'm hard pressed to think of a technique that the spammers wouldn't attempt to game. Search engines and spammers will probably always be in a perpetual arms race no matter what the methodology.

kenjackson2• 15 years ago

Easy to circumvent. Spend 5 minutes thinking of how to do it. I suspect you'll think of at least a couple of ways.

The battle against spammers will continue to be cat and mouse game. And when one of your signals gets exposed, of course it will be a target.

There's nothing new here. In fact, I think most spammers already assumed that the toolbar clickthroughs fed into both Bing and Google toolbars. I did.

fname• 15 years ago

Well, Google should do nothing less than encourage people to use those spammy methods either stop the practice all together or force Microsoft to lessen the weight is uses for that particular signal.

encoderer4• 15 years ago

This is like gaming Google Suggest. You're going to need a lot of IP's because they're not idiots in Redmond OR Mountain View and it's pretty simple to detect behavior like that coming from a single IP.

If the spammer gets 10,000 IPs then more power to him. But there's probably more cost effective ways of black-hat SEO.

Natsu3• 15 years ago

The spammers already control botnets of that size. They could duplicate the clickstream data with a few lines of code (it's a simple HTTP request feeding Bing the clicks; the only sticky parts are deciding which Bing IP to send them to and harvesting the per-computer ID it sends to Bing).

In short, this gives them a new service to sell when they rent out their existing botnet.

Natsu3• 15 years ago

You don't need VMs or a fake Google or anything that complex. That said, I will grant that it might be harder to detect or easier than reversing the protocol itself. Even so, take a look at what HN user angusgr posted in another thread:

http://projectgus.com/2011/02/bing-google-finding-some-facts...

I'll save you some reading and point out that this is the important part, the exchange with Bing:

http://projectgus.com/files/googlebing/seaport-trace.txt

I bet I could duplicate that with a few lines of Perl. Then I could feed Bing whatever I want, no VMs or clicking or DNS/hosts files to worry about. You might have to harvest a valid identifier (such as the one linked there) or do some figuring out so that you submit this to the right Microsoft IP.

If I were working for Bing, I'd start looking at hardening this a little, before the SEO people figure it out.

dave777• 15 years ago

I would wager most of the people commenting don't work in search and how to use datamining to improve search. I think it is useful to see the perspective of someone that actually thinks long and hard about building these types of systems before commenting on whether it is fair or innovative or just plain stealing. http://hunch.net/?p=1660

muro• 15 years ago

From the article (about spell correction):

> Well, above is the same situation where Bing gets a misspelled word right — a link to a definition of the correctly spelled word at the top of the list. But it’s very unlikely it figured this out from Google, given that for the misspelling, Google doesn’t auto-correct the word nor provide the same answer.

Perhaps because people first click on the spell correction and then on the result - so maybe they don't yet copy also the spell correction, only the results. I think this is even stronger that they copy the results, not weaker.

flatline• 15 years ago

From this article:

"We’re not going to stop using that signal, unless it messes up relevancy. It doesn’t make sense to exclude that large amount of traffic from our usage set," Weitz said.

From the TechCrunch article a few days back [1]:

"Google had employees log onto ms customer feedback system and send results to Microsoft."

(to which Matt Cutts replied: normal people call that "IE8")

Unlike many others, I do not think this is a cut-and-dry issue, but the squirrelly responses from the MS folks on this have really made me think they are just up to no good, true to the form of so much of their corporate history. Arguing with vague technical terms and ad-hominem attacks are not a good way to convince a highly technical crowd of your virtues.

[1] http://techcrunch.com/2011/02/01/bing-google-fight/

vash_stampy4• 15 years ago

From the article: "Meanwhile, I’m on my third day of waiting to hear back from Google about just what exactly it does with its own toolbar. Now that the company has fired off accusations against Bing about data collection, Google loses the right to stay as tight-lipped as it has been in the past about how the toolbar may be used in search results."

And Google's sudden silence you don't find suspicious. This is the same company that invited the author of the original article to their headquarters the day after he wrote it.

varjag• 15 years ago

You suggest Google Toolbar collects Bing search results?

coderdude2• 15 years ago

I believe Matt Cutts already stated that they don't use any click stream signals from their toolbar in their rankings. So much has been said about this that I haven't been able to find the quote. I may have even gotten wrong which Google employee said it.

hristov• 15 years ago

If Google did the same thing with their toolbar, then Microsoft should be able to catch Google the same way Google caught Microsoft. Thus far they haven't although I am sure they are trying.

abraham2• 15 years ago

My recollection is Google has said several times that they don't use the toolbar tracking to effect search results. I can't find any sources right now though so I'm going from memory. One exception is tracking goes into personalized history which customizes search for that particular accounts results.

vash_stampy4• 15 years ago

Round and round the speculation wheel goes! Where it stops, no one knows!

rwaliany• 15 years ago

I worked on the Bing AI team (pre-launch), they didn't copy Google. If anything, both search engines copy wikipedia. I believe that this was the click-stream research done by an intern researcher from UBC.

jdp23• 15 years ago

Very clear writeup. I thought this was an excellent point:

"PR is not leading this dispute. It’s following behind. This dispute is happening because real engineers at Google felt there was a deep injustice going on — as reflected in the quote from Google’s Amit Singhal in my original article. I’ve known Singhal for years. I’ve never seen him speak like this before. It’s not because Google PR told him to. It’s because he’s fundamentally bothered by what he’s seen — as are members of his team.

This dispute is also happening because real engineers at Bing feel there’s a deep injustice going on — as reflected in the quote from Harry Shum above. Bing’s worked incredibly hard to build a search engine that’s worthy of respect. Now here’s Google suggesting that Bing has simply cheated its way to relevancy."

The conversation with moultano on a thread a couple days ago was a good example of this. http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2177354

joblessjunkie• 15 years ago

So Microsoft's defense is that they are not copying Google in particular -- they are copying every search engine?

gniv• 15 years ago

Exactly. http://www.bonkersworld.net/2011/02/04/copying/

grhino• 15 years ago

Using what people click on from search results from competing search engines sounds like copying the competition to me.

It sounds like they automated the process of piggy backing off the work of other search engines, not just Google.

They should exclude all competing search engines from this process.

gojomo8• 15 years ago

Doesn't this passage suggest that Google ignores robots.txt in its own cross-comparisons of search relevancy:

Google said in October that it found statistical evidence that Bing suddenly became more Google-like. More listings in the first page of results of both search engines seemed to match, as did more of the number one results.

How would you get statistically significant results for such things, over time, without constant automated probe queries against Bing?

I think such probes are both legal and wise... but Google should drop the pretense that robots.txt is a sacred barrier across which no analysis can be done, no matter how indirect or for what purpose.

Also, I'd wager at some time in its history – if not constantly even today – Google has shown panels of users results from Google and its competitors in various combinations – side-by-side, with and without branding, intermixed randomly – and used their reactions to detect areas where the competitors are doing well, and Google could improve.

Further, either human eyes or algorithms then tried to determine adjustments to close any gaps in user satisfaction. The net effect of any such process is – surprise, surprise! – leveraging strengths of other engines to patch weaknesses in Google. This is normal, expected behavior by any serious search competitor.

Jabbles• 15 years ago

I think there is a major difference between identifying areas for improvement and copying a specific search result from a competitor.

gojomo8• 15 years ago

I don't see it as that different. If the panel suggests a competitor's top-10 result is strongly preferred, and then Google examines why they didn't have that in their top-10, and tinkers with their weightings until they do, then they've used a competitor's output signals to train their own systems.

zzleeper• 15 years ago

I think there is a DEEP flaw in this argument:

"Here’s another one. This time, it’s a misspelling of “bombilate,” a rare word I cited above. I searched for “bombilete,” instead.."

In essence, they say that Google only pointed to the typo, but Bing redirected to it. Thus, "it’s very unlikely it figured this out from Google". For me, making that argument is insulting to the readers intelligence.

jeroen• 15 years ago

You missed part of the argument:

"But it’s very unlikely it figured this out from Google, given that for the misspelling, Google doesn’t auto-correct the word nor provide the same answer."

Bing's nr 1 result is not in Google's results at all.

moultano5• 15 years ago

Google has the spell correction. Microsoft could certainly be harvesting that data directly. (Which appears to be what they are doing on that query.)

indyank3• 15 years ago

It is known to all that both use user data in whatever way possible.But what bing seem to be doing it is use it on users searching on google (through IE etc. or maybe even windows) and find the more relevant ones.Did you guys notice Harry Shum mentioning about "cost cutting" in the video where Matt, he and the blekko CEO discuss on this issue.

So, it looks like bing is indirectly using google's data by incurring lesser cost and this is how they seem do it.Spy on google searchers and build the right database. instead of spending on innovation and new ways on the algorithm. Let google do that part while we piggy back on their good ones.

This is what has really irritated google.

joelhaus• 15 years ago

I found this very strange... Did Bing increase clickstream data usage in their algorithm when Google saw Bing results get more Google-like in October of 2010 or not?

Shrum:

  Not so, Bing told me. In October, Bing says it rolled out a new 
  ranking algorithm plus a new experimental system called “Aether” 
  that allows them to test changes in their ranking methodology. 
  That’s what caused the bump that Google saw, not some sudden use 
  of the surfstream, Bing said.

Web (during October 2010):

http://www.google.com/search?q=Bing+new+ranking+algorithm...

treelovinhippie• 15 years ago

Remember when the polarizing search battle was between Google and Yahoo? ...yeah neither do I.

These battles do nothing more than establish the two dominate players.

Bing: Why Google’s Wrong In Its Accusations

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