The search engine firm Bing is once again trying to urge web browsers to break their 'Google habit' with a new version of its 'Bing It On Challenge' online PR campaign.
In the latest of its Bing It On Challenges, web browsers have been asked to perform five different search queries on its BingItOn site, choosing the header free Search Engine Result Page (SERP) they prefer. The site then informs the user whether their selection indicates a preference for Bing or Google.
The campaign was launched in September 2012, with a study commissioned by Bing the following month suggesting users were picking its own SERP at a rate of 2:1 over its search engine nemesis Google in similar tests.
At the time of writing, this challenge is only available in the US, but previous ones have been accessible globally and Bing claims around 25 million people have taken a Bing It On Challenge since its launch.
Interestingly, a study by Survey Monkey in April 2013 suggested the exact opposite case to this latest Bing it On campaign however.
The majority of those questioned, in a test which included normal SERPs side by side, and then a crafty experiment in which the Google and Bing header were simply swapped around, still showed a brand bias to Google, picking the Google SERP over Bing's, even when it was in fact Bing's SERP with a Google header.
Whether this is simply the latest in a long line of online PR propaganda - see Microsoft's other Scroogled and Outlook campaigns - against its search engine rival then, remains to be seen, but Bing is certainly hoping to persuade people to consider it as the top dog in the search engine world: It will be supporting the campaign with a national (US-wide) television and online ad campaign.
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