Bing vs. Google: We Compare Users, Search Features, Ads + AI

Google dominates the search engine space with 1 billion active users, but Bing still has much to offer businesses that want to grow online. Our Bing vs. Google comparison shows you how these platforms stack up.

For decades, Google has dominated the search engine market — but that doesn’t mean we should forget about Bing.

As Microsoft’s search engine improves its user experience and features, its user base grows, making it an attractive marketing channel for businesses.

But with limited time and resources, you may be thinking—which is the better platform?

Let’s compare Bing vs. Google and look at each search engine’s users, search features, ad platforms, AI capabilities, analytics, and more.

Bing vs. Google comparison

Google and Bing are the most popular search engines, and share the same goal—to deliver the best possible search results to users. But most users to turn Google for its queries.

As of 2023, Google has 1 billion daily active users compared to Bing’s 100 million daily users. So we can’t ignore Bing, especially since it offers similar features and capabilities (e.g., reaching a targeted audience using organic and paid search).

The difference in market share

There’s no question about it. Google dominates the global search market. According to Statista, in January 2024, Google accounted for 81.05% of the global search market, and Bing accounted for 10.51%.

Google gets about 86.6 billion visits per month. While Bing gets about 1.4 billion visits per month. But Bing’s user base is growing as Microsoft adds new features to improve the user experience. For example, a month after launching its AI update, Microsoft’s Bing reached over 100 million daily active users.

The stats suggest Google is the better search engine based on market share alone. But let’s not overlook its popularity growth in the U.S. — Microsoft handles more than 27% of all search queries in the United States.

If we were to ignore Bing altogether, we’d be missing out on almost 30% of U.S. search engine users. So, if your target market is in the United States, then it’s worthwhile to optimize for Bing and Google.

Bing users vs. Google users

Both search engines have similar user demographics. Bing’s audience is nearly 36% female and more than 64% male. While Google’s audience is over 42% female and more than 57% male. Both search engines have a slightly higher male demographic.

As for user ages — both search engines have a similar demographic. Here’s a general breakdown.

Approximate Bing user age demographics:

• 18% are 18-24 years old
• 26% are 25-34 years old
• 23% are 35-44 years old
• 15% are 45-54 years old
• 9% are 55-64 years old
• 6% are 65+ years old

Google age user demographics:

• 21% are 18-24 years old
• 28% are 25-34 years old
• 19% are 35-44 years old
• 14% are 45-54 years old
• 9% are 55-64 years old
• 6% are 65+ years old

When comparing Google vs. Bing’s users, there’s no significant difference. Bing has a slightly higher percentage of male users and users in the 35 to 44 age range.

But with no major differences, it’s safe to say that regardless of the target audience, you can leverage either search engine to reach potential buyers.

The differences in search

Bing and Google have key differences in how they generate and display search results. Here’s a look at the two different search engines, comparing the following:

• Search functionality
• The search engine results page
• Search algorithms
• Ranking factors
• Search quality

Search functionality

The search functionality of each search engine is (again) very similar. Both Google and Microsoft Bing offer the following search functionality:

• Text search
• Image search
• Video search
• Voice search
• Visual search
• Google Maps
• News
• Shopping

However, Google has additional functionality, allowing you to search for books and flights directly from the search bar.

Bing search engine

Google search engine

The search engine results page

The search results pages for Google and Bing are similar but have some key distinctions.

For instance, when searching for “vegan skincare,” the Google SERP features sponsored product ads at the top of the page. It also has suggestions for filtering the results further like “cruelty-free,” “organic,” “under $10,” “fragrance-free,” and “for men.”

The Bing search results page is similar but with a more visual interface. Like Google, the product ads appear at the top of the search results. Bing also makes it easy to narrow your product search by choosing from categories like “vegan makeup” or “all natural vegan skin care.”

Underneath the product ads on Google are the sponsored text ads and organic search results. Each has a headline and text description.

Some of the results have additional information. For example, the organic search results for Sephora, a beauty store, includes a seller rating and current offers like 1-3 day free delivery over $50 and free 30-day returns.

On Bing, text ads and organic search results follow. However, Bing organizes information visually, making it easier to see what information you’ll get when you click on a link.

It’s kind of like a supercharged Google Featured Snippet. When you click on the lightbulb button, you can explore the article further before you click on it.

The Bing organic article recommendations look similar to the Popular Opinions section on the Google SERP, which collects lists of best vegan skincare products.

Google also has a “people also ask” section where you can explore the answers to commonly asked questions.

And Bing and Google have a related searches section with other keywords people search for when looking at vegan skincare. The screenshots show how the design of these sections is similar.

Google related searches

Bing related searches

One thing Bing offers that Google doesn’t is a prompt to ask Bing Chat about the topic. Bing Chat is an AI chatbot that helps users get more information and answer their questions.

However, Google isn’t entirely out of the AI running. As of this writing, some users have access to Google Search Generative Experience (SGE), which allows users to select “Generate” after a search to see an AI response to the query.

When you select more, it offers more information about vegan skincare ingredients, products to consider, and links to articles to explore.

Search algorithms

Google and Bing use proprietary algorithms to analyze and rank web pages. Both have the common goal of delivering the best possible results to search engine users. But they go about it a bit differently.

The Google algorithm uses machine learning. For instance, it has used RankBrain, the machine learning algorithm, since 2015. It uses natural language processing (NLP) to understand the context of words and phrases.

The Bing algorithm also uses AI and machine learning. Microsoft integrated OpenAI with Bing and Edge in early 2023.

Ranking factors

Search engine optimization is important for both Google and Bing, but the two search engines use slightly different criteria to rank web pages.

Quality content

Quality content is an important ranking factor for both Google and Bing. The more high-quality, relevant content you create, the more opportunities you have to rank high on the search engine results pages.

Keywords

When it comes to keywords, Google uses semantic search to understand the meaning and intent of users’ search terms. Bing uses OpenAI technology to understand context to deliver results based on search intent.

Backlinks

Both search engines use backlinks as a ranking factor. However, Google focuses more on relevance, diversity, and domain authority. While Bing focuses more on the quantity of links and their anchor text.

On-page SEO

Google cares more about the completeness of your content rather than the exact keywords because it can understand synonyms, variations, and natural language. Bing prefers exact-match keywords and places importance on title tags, meta descriptions, headings, and other on-page optimization factors.

Technical SEO

Both search engines want well-structured website content and code. They also emphasize page speed, mobile-friendly design, and security (HTTPS). Google uses structured data to pull out snippets and Bing does the same for its answer boxes.

Use this guide to technical SEO to learn more about improving yours.

Search quality

Google and Bing favor unique, high-quality content that’s relevant to the user’s query. The two search engines use different factors to measure the quality of content.

Google’s E-E-A-T guidelines are one example of a method the search engine uses to evaluate quality. Content that demonstrates Experience, Expertise, Authoritativeness, and Trustworthiness is more credible and, therefore, more likely to rank on the SERP.

Bing uses different methods to evaluate content. Its main evaluation criteria are readability, freshness, and multimedia. Bing favors content that’s easy to read and navigate, is up-to-date, and includes images, video, or other media that enhance the user’s understanding of the topic.

Bing Ads compared to Google Ads

Many advertisers may approach PPC with the understanding that it’s Bing Ads vs. Google Ads. But the truth is each has strengths and work best when used together.

Google Ads

Even though there are many PPC platforms out there, Google Ads has become synonymous with pay-per-click advertising for many marketers. Google has two different advertising networks where you can run ad campaigns.

The Search Network is where advertisers can create text ads that appear on the search engine results page. The Display Network is where advertisers create display ads that appear on various websites.

Google Ads has multiple ad formats, including:

• Text ads
• Responsive ads
• Image ads
• App promotion ads
• Video ads
• Shopping ads
• Call-only ads

You can run different ads from the same Google account and sometimes from the same campaign. Google also has ad extensions to enhance your ads.

Microsoft Ads

Microsoft Ads, formerly Bing Ads, appear on the Bing search engine and other Microsoft digital advertising spaces like:

• Yahoo
• AOL
• MSN
• DuckDuckGo
• Microsoft Edge
• Outlook
• Skype
• Windows
• Cortana
• Xbox

If you’re not familiar with Bing Ads, you may be wondering who uses Bing to advertise? Businesses across industries — from retail and ecommerce to finance and healthcare use Microsoft advertising to reach their target audience.

Source: blog.hootsuite.com

Bing offers several ad formats for pay-per-click advertising, including:

• Bing display ads
• Dynamic search ads
• Responsive search ads
• Expanded text ads
• Audience ads
• App install ads
• Multimedia ads
• Product ads
• Vertical ads

Microsoft also offer ad extensions, such as app, call, callout, image, and location extensions that add additional information to your ads.

Google ads vs. Bing ads: Targeting

Both Google and Microsoft Ads allow for exact match, broad match, and negative keyword targeting. Google Ads allows advertisers to target more than 40 languages, and Microsoft Advertising includes 12 languages.

Google offers audience and content targeting. Audience targeting allows you to reach people based on who they are, their interests and habits, and what they’re looking for online. You can also target people who’ve interacted with your ads, website, or app. Content targeting allows you to target based on topics, placement, and content keywords.

Bing allows you to set targeting options at the campaign or ad group level. With Bing, you can target ads based on location, day of the week, time of day, gender and age, and device.

Google ads vs. Bing ads: Ad creative

Search ads appear very similar on Google and Bing, and both platforms support ad extensions.

Here are the basic Google ad specs for search ads:

• Headline: 25 characters
• Final URL: 2,048 characters
• Description: 90 characters

Here are the basic Bing ad specs for search ads:

• Title: Two 30-character ad titles separated by a hyphen
• Description: 80 characters
• Final URL: 2,048 characters

Which PPC ad platform should you use?

If you’re wondering which ad platform is better for your business, we’ve got to ask—why not both?

“If your marketing goals are focused on performance and bringing in the highest value conversions, we’ve found that using any and all platforms where your target market exists has worked for many of our clients,” says Rambod Yadegar, HawkSEM President.

“And tracking all touchpoints of the user journey — from initial click to sale — is a vital aspect of closing the loop on performance and ROI. We use ConversionIQ, our proprietary software, to granularly track every step of the buyer journey to see which aspects of a campaign are working and which need to be adjusted.”

Google Bard and Bing AI

Bing and Google have generative artificial intelligence features that help search engine users get the answers they’re looking for quickly and easily.

Microsoft Copilot

Bing’s AI chatbot, Microsoft Copilot (formerly Bing Chat) is based on the same technology as GPT. The tool is free and accessible right from the Microsoft Bing search engine. You can also log into the tool separately to use it as a standalone tool.

Much like ChatGPT, Bing Copilot can generate copy, write code, and answer complicated questions. Microsoft’s AI also has access to the Internet through Bing. Copilot can also generate images and can process images you upload to give you more information about them, such as identifying plants.

Google Gemini

Google Gemini is an umbrella name for its AI tools, which have replaced Google’s AI chatbot, Bard and its workspace-oriented tool, Duet AI. There’s also a free Google Gemini app for Android. Gemini will also be available on Apple devices through the Google app.

Like Microsoft Copilot, Gemini can help with brainstorming, learning, and writing. You can also use it to interact with Google’s other services like YouTube, Maps, and Gmail.

Bing Places vs. Google Business Profile

Bing Places and Google Business Profile (formerly Google My Business) are free tools businesses use to show up in local search results on Bing and Google. Both tools require you to claim your listing, complete your profile, and verify your listing.

When you search for a local business, you’ll see the business listings at the top of the search engine results page on Bing and Google.

Places in Bing search results

Google Business profiles

Each platform also has a map view that shows the locations of the different businesses that appear in the search results.When you open up the profile, you’ll see similar information, such as contact information, images, and other details about the business.

Bing Places maps view

Google Maps view

Both profiles will show customer reviews. Google allows customers to leave a review directly on the company’s Google Business profile.

While you can’t leave a review on Bing, the platform pulls customer reviews from Tripadvisor that you can read on the company’s business profile. It also pulls general review stats from Facebook, Yelp, Doordash, and the Chamber of Commerce. You can click on these rating stats to read the full reviews on each organization’s website.

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams Bing Places Profile

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams Google Business Profile

Both profiles will show customer reviews. Google allows customers to leave a review directly on the company’s Google Business profile.

While you can’t leave a review on Bing, the platform pulls customer reviews from Tripadvisor that you can read on the company’s business profile. It also pulls general review stats from Facebook, Yelp, Doordash, and the Chamber of Commerce. You can click on these rating stats to read the full reviews on each organization’s website.

Tripadvisor reviews on Bing Places profile

Since the profiles are free to set up and require updating when changes are made, it’s worthwhile to claim your profiles on both search engines. There’s no harm in getting traffic from both platforms.

Google Analytics or Bing Webmaster Tools?

Both Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics are go-too tools for SEO professionals. Both are free, web-based tools that track website traffic and web presence on their respective search engines.

Google Analytics provides the following benefits:

• Real-time data tracking and analytics
• User behavior and audience insights
• Mobile and cross-device tracking
• Custom reporting and data visualization
• Integrates with Google Ads

While Bing Webmaster Tools offers:

• Site performance and crawl status monitoring
• Keyword and search query analysis
• Sitemap and URL submission
• Mobile and international targeting options
• Integrates with Bing Ads

Here’s a look at the home screens of Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics 4:

Bing Webmaster Tools Source: www.bing.com

Google Analytics 4 Source: www.rootandbranchgroup.com

If you’re optimizing for both search engines, you may want to use both tools, depending on the type of data you want to track.

The takeaway

When it comes to SEO and PPC, digital marketing professionals often focus on Google due to its dominant position in the global search engine market. But as Bing continues to improve its offerings, it draws in more search engine users, making it a powerful platform for businesses that want to grow online.

At HawkSEM, we aren’t just an organic SEO agency, we also offer PPC management services to support our clients with Google Ads, Bing Ads, paid social media marketing, and Amazon advertising.

If you need help deciding which platform is right for you or you want to leverage both to reach your audience, let’s chat.