Microsoft: 'We do not copy Google's results'

On February 1, Google went public (via SearchEngineLand.com) withclaims that Microsoft is copying Google search results with Bing.

Google’s ‘Bing Sting’ evidence (screenshots)

(SearchEngineLand has details of how Google created a “Bing Sting” operation to try to catch Microsoft in the act.)

Is Microsoft copping to the claim? Here’s the original response Microsoft is providing to folks who are asking:

“We use multiple signals and approaches in ranking search results.  The overarching goal is to do a better job determining the intent of the search so we can provide the most relevant answer to a given query. Opt-in programs like the toolbar help us with clickstream data, one of many input signals we and other search engines use to help rank sites,” said Stefan Weitz, Director, Bing.

(Update: Matt Rosoff at Silicon Alley Insider has some good historical perspective on how Microsoft has been using its toolbar add-on for Internet Explorer to keep tabs on search terms and topics.)

I went back and asked the Bing folks again, noting that I couldn’t figure out if this was a verbose way of admitting Bing was copying or a denial.

Here’s the new statement, attributable to a company spokesperson:

“We do not copy Google’s results.”

I’m expecting there could be a longer and more detailed answer, via a blog post or a statement during today’s Farsite 2011 future of searchevent. If Microsoft isn’t copying Google’s results, how do they explain the results of the “Bing Sting”? No word so far.

In the interim, the motto of today’s story: The direct answer is almost always the best answer.

Update No. 2: And here it is: Microsoft has posted its explanation of how it uses more than 1,000 different “signals” to create its search algorithm. An excerpt of a blog post from Harry Shum, Bing Corporate Vice President:

“To be clear, we learn from all of our customers. What we saw in today’s story was a spy-novelesque stunt to generate extreme outliers in tail query ranking. It was a creative tactic by a competitor, and we’ll take it as a back-handed compliment. But it doesn’t accurately portray how we use opt-in customer data as one of many inputs to help improve our user experience.”

The evidence

Google’s search engine looked for the word ‘tarsorrhaphy’ after ‘tarsoraphy’ was typed into the search box.

A search on Bing for the misspelled word came up with the exact same results. Here is Google’s comment.

Google: Sting proves Bing copied search results

By the CNN Wire Staff

(CNN) -- Microsoft's search engine Bing is copying results from Google, the dominant search engine on the internet, has claimed.


Suspicious of their new rival, Google engineers set up random results on their site for a series of unlikely search terms, such as "hiybbprqag." (Google arranged for the nonsense word to point to a Los Angeles theater seating plan on its search engine.)


"Within a couple weeks of starting this experiment, our inserted results started appearing in Bing," Google said in a statement on its official blog Tuesday.


Google said it welcomed honest competition, but sneered at Bing's "recycled search results from a competitor."


Bing did not deny that it took Google into account when producing its own search results, but suggested they were only one factor among many. They also accused Google in turn of a "spy-novelesque stunt" that would only affect very unusual search terms.


"We use over 1,000 different signals and features in our ranking algorithm," Bing vice president Harry Shum said Tuesday, referring to the mathematical code that search engines use to choose their results.


Each company develops its own search algorithms, and the quality of the results depends on them, making them the key to a search engine's effectiveness.


Bing gets "a small piece" of the data for its algorithm "from some of our customers, who opt-in to sharing anonymous data as they navigate the web in order to help us improve the experience for all users," Shum said, saying many internet companies used "collective intelligence" gathered online the same way.


He shrugged off Google's sting as "a creative tactic by a competitor, and we'll take it as a back-handed compliment."


Google had more than 70% of the U.S. search engine market as of the end of August, when it started running its sting, according to Experian Hitwise, which monitors web traffic. Bing had just under 10%.