Are you getting different results from different search engines?
For many of us, online search engines are the first place we look when we’re searching for information. We trust them to provide us with the most relevant results, but those results are not always consistent.
The reason for that inconsistency has a lot to do with the constant evolution of search algorithms. Google and Bing have both been making big updates to their algorithms that affect the search results you get. What are those updates?
Google’s search algorithm has seen some big changes recently. One of the most drastic of those changes is the suppression of results that are coming from content farms.
Content farms are companies that employ a large number of writers whose job is to produce lots of content that is designed to satisfy search algorithms without much actual or factual content. The main goal of these companies is to generate ad revenue by gaining more page views.
Google’s hope is to place higher quality websites at the top of search results. Google’s new algorithm uses advances in computer intelligence, such as mimicking human understanding, and it could help produce more relevant results. Google is also using Twitter postings to focus on real-time results.
Bing
Bing came onto the scene calling itself the “decision engine.” It was a play on the idea that most search engines give you results that you aren’t looking for, while Bing knows what you’re looking for and finds it.
Although Google has started to integrate more real-time results, Bing is a step ahead. Bing highlights listings that your friends have “liked” or shared on Facebook as well as gives the most recent posts on the topic.
Using two different search engines can yield different results. All results should be somewhat relevant, the specific results just depend on what the search engine’s algorithm accounts for.
To learn more about the recent changes to Google, check out this New York Times article.
