This is not an experiment on comparing how precise or thorough are these two search engines (like in the TV ad - "don't get Googled" - sponsored by Microsoft). This is about what just happened to me (oh, 20 minutes ago) while quickly typing a pure human language question in Google's Search engine.
The first page of results from Google is shown on the Left. I have not looked at the next pages. Instead of thinking through to find a decent reason why Google's engine returned me those results - it is difficult to reason well under shock- I did what any Consumer in a free and fair market has the right to do: compare.
The first page of results from Bing is shown here on the Right.
If reading now, be confident that I am not paid by Microsoft for showing this comparison. Many years ago, I found out that the long term gain from knowing and respecting what is true (as much as one can get close to it the first time, and then even closer because of the accumulations) is much higher than the immediate benefits from giving up the option of doing so.
Why did this happen? Maybe because "buy gold" is the most frequent search and "performance improvement" market is the most profitable one these days?
"Enough monkeys can write Hamlet".
I have typed my search in Google Search almost like a monkey, little thinking crossed my mind, I was just "spool"-ing words from the small investor discussion.
Under the shocking results from Google I have copied the same question in Bing, like a monkey, again, mouse click copy, mouse click paste. I got much more appropriate results.
Once I calmed down knowing that it is not a whole Internet attack by "performance enhancement" drugs dealers, I decided to use a few minutes to do 2 things:
- make sure this experiment is reproducible (was it just a glitch - glitches happen in software because it is economically prohibitive to do 100% QA)
- write about it (maybe somebody will read, have more time to experiment, and find a better explanation)
Finally, my true monkey error was a grammar error, the missing "N" by the end of "South Africa".
WHAT gold IS BETTER TO BUY AMERICAN, CANADIAN, AUSTRALIAN, SOUTH AFRICA?
Google's Search behavior retrieves its glamour after correcting:
WHAT gold IS BETTER TO BUY AMERICAN, CANADIAN, AUSTRALIAN, SOUTH AFRICAN?
The paid Ads were the same, and correctly targeted towards people interested in gold.
Try it and write about your finding. Ignore CAPS, there are not important, fast monkey typing on my laptop hit the CAPS LOCK key. By looking at Best and Buy highlights in Google's search results, I wonder if Best Buy brand can be tricked into this.
Experimentation takes time which is unpaid for. Companies who still think like this shall pay attention - big risks are looming ...
The "monkeys writing Hamlet" hypothesis required way too many monkeys to instantiate the proof. I think that it showed what is probable vs. what is possible in a real, physical resources bounded world (one which could not accommodate the large population of monkeys typing until one monkey typed exactly what Shakespeare wrote in the original Hamlet).
Me wondering when I have no time for thorough thinking and more of rational experimentations:
I wonder if simple experiments such as my query are equivalent proof to the one built by Chicago scholars in the case of Google monopoly of "Search" market. It shows that Google is in the business of Ads not of Search.
As my attention is now on Google's Ads business, I wonder why Brands pay so much to Google for targeting their ads Have companies compared performances of several engines that make inferences on what people want and are willing to pay for? Corporations are people, they also have the right to think.
On this topic, I wonder why Google does not experiment more to find the "cracks" which allow free, even illegal, riders. My query experiment shows that they exist (Google did not "clean" them up), nobody is perfect. If we do not look to improve without expecting immediate gains, there is always somebody trying to benefit from our imperfections and we loose in long term.
Under a relaxed time frame, it is very probable that there is an abundance of free experiments similar to the one above, to prove a case. I am not preaching for "seeing is believing" type of proof. Technology empowers us with Rational Experimentation, undercutting the high risk/high rewards theory based on probabilities and largely used to create artificial value.
This is just a happening. It grew my respect for simple (not simplistic) demonstrations of complicated matters. It made me think that there are many expensive operations which can be replaced with simpler, more solid ones without changing the result from operations. If we are afraid of unknown consequences of doing so, somebody else or just time will inevitably do it instead of us.
Now I will speak from belief, which is yet another domain than reasoning or fear. I believe solid simple demonstrations to hard problems are reliable (some beautiful examples exist). I believe we need to be careful in our pursuit for simplicity. However, when someone or something can refute one of these recognized simple demonstrations, that one or that thing is really worth engaging with to find out more.
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