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Repair common Windows errors and clear accumulated junk for a smoother, more stable PC - no reinstall needed.Free scan · no reinstallThere was no single winner in the Bing It On debate: Microsoft said a commissioned blind test favored Bing, while Yale Law School authors reported that participants in a separate experiment preferred Google. The disagreement turned in part on which queries people judged—and the results do not establish a universal winner between the search engines.
What was the Bing It On challenge?
Microsoft launched Bing It On on September 6, 2012. The public challenge let people enter five queries of their choice and compare Bing and Google web results side by side without the engine names. For each comparison, users could pick a winner or call it a draw. Microsoft described the test as a comparison of web-results panes, excluding ads, Bing Snapshot and Social Search, and Google’s Knowledge Graph. Microsoft’s launch announcement called it a blind challenge; a separate Microsoft post described it as “a fun, non-scientific online test designed to show that the quality of Bing’s web search results has surpassed Google’s.”
The public challenge and the study used to support Microsoft’s headline campaign claim were not the same thing. Microsoft said an independent study commissioned from Answers Research found that participants chose Bing’s web results over Google’s “nearly 2-to-1” in blind comparison tests. That was Microsoft’s reported result from commissioned research—not the outcome of everyone who used the public five-query tool. The announcement does not provide the underlying study’s full methods.
What did Microsoft report, and what did Yale find?
The headline figures come from different tests and should not be combined as though they describe one group of people:
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| Test or report | Who reported it | Queries and comparison | Reported result |
|---|---|---|---|
| Commissioned blind comparison, 2012 | Microsoft, citing independent research commissioned from Answers Research | Blind comparison of web results; the announcement does not give the full study methods. | Microsoft said participants preferred Bing “nearly 2-to-1.” |
| Randomized experiment on the challenge site | Ian Ayres and co-authors, in a Yale Law School paper | US-based Amazon Mechanical Turk participants; the abstract reports comparisons involving popular, self-selected, or Microsoft-recommended query terms. | The authors reported that 53% preferred Google and 41% preferred Bing. |
| Popular-query comparison, 2013 | Microsoft | A separate comparison using popular web searches; Microsoft said it used pure web results without ads or specified special panels. | Microsoft reported 52% preferred Bing, 36% Google, and 12% rated them equally, with a stated margin of error of ±3 percentage points at 95% confidence. |
The Yale paper, “A Randomized Experiment Assessing the Accuracy of Microsoft’s ‘Bing It On’ Challenge,” did not reanalyze Microsoft’s commissioned study. Its abstract reports the experiment’s findings and says participants were significantly less likely to prefer Bing when assigned popular or self-selected queries rather than query terms Microsoft recommended for the challenge. The authors wrote that their findings “suggest that some of the claims implicit in Microsoft’s advertisements warrant legal scrutiny.” That is the authors’ assessment, not a court ruling. The Yale paper abstract is the basis for the reported experiment figures and query-selection finding.
Did the search terms change who won?
In the Yale authors’ experiment, yes: the reported preference for Bing was lower when participants judged popular or self-selected queries than when they were assigned terms Microsoft recommended for the challenge. That finding makes query choice an important part of interpreting a side-by-side search test. Search results can differ by query, so a result based on one set of terms need not predict what people will prefer for another set.
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But the abstract does not establish that query choice alone explains the difference between Yale’s result and Microsoft’s commissioned result. The studies had different designs and participant groups, and the available descriptions do not establish precise methodological equivalence. The Yale abstract does not give the sample size or complete randomization and statistical details; Microsoft’s campaign announcement likewise does not fully describe the commissioned study. The evidence supports a narrower conclusion: the outcome of a search-preference test can depend on the queries and test design.
What did Microsoft’s later follow-up say?
Microsoft published additional figures in October 2012 about the challenge’s effect on users’ impressions. In a post reporting Answers Research findings, Microsoft said the follow-up included 4,706 web surveys, weighted to the US online population by age, gender, and income; whether someone primarily used Google was self-stated. Microsoft reported that 64% said they were surprised by Bing’s web-results quality and more than half said their impression of Bing improved. It also said 33% of respondents who identified Google as their primary search engine said they would use Bing more often after the challenge. These are company-reported survey findings, not measurements of an overall search-quality winner. Microsoft’s October 2012 post gives the company’s account.
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In February 2013, Microsoft reported a separate test using popular web searches: 52% preferred Bing, 36% preferred Google, and 12% rated the results equally. The company stated a margin of error of ±3 percentage points at 95% confidence. Microsoft said the comparison used pure web results, without ads or specified special panels. These are Microsoft’s figures for its own reported test, not a replication of the Yale experiment. Microsoft’s 2013 post describes that comparison.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How should the “nearly 2-to-1” claim be read?
Microsoft’s claim described preferences in a commissioned blind comparison of web results, as Microsoft reported it in 2012. It did not mean that the public challenge itself had produced a representative, universal verdict, nor that every user or query would favor Bing. The Yale authors’ different result challenges the broader impression a reader might take from campaign messaging, but it does not by itself disprove every result from Microsoft’s separate study.
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Microsoft’s Mike Nichols said in the 2012 announcement: “Relevancy of search results is the No. 1 driver of search engine preference, and independent research shows that people chose Bing’s Web search results over Google’s nearly 2-to-1.” The key qualification is that this was Microsoft’s characterization of commissioned research. The public challenge was a demonstration tool, and the Yale paper was a separate experiment that found a different preference pattern under different query conditions.
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What can the dispute establish?
- The test setup matters. The studies differed in query selection and other design details; the published descriptions do not support treating them as directly equivalent.
- The measured outcome was preference, not an objective ranking for every task. The reported figures describe which results participants said they preferred under particular tests.
- The visible search page was bounded. Microsoft described its comparisons as focusing on web results rather than ads and certain search features, so the figures should not be expanded into a judgment of every part of either service.
- The evidence is specific to these reported tests. It cannot establish a timeless overall winner between Bing and Google.
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