It begs a question, will Bing overtake Google in China?  Time will certainly tell but currently the overwhelming leader in China is Baidu.  But Google’s recent issues with the Chinese Government have caused tension between the search giant and the world’s most populous country.  Now to that point about censorship, I think Google stands on high moral ground and I think it’s difficult for companies to make a decision that they know will negatively effect their bottom line.  So I say kudos to them, and on the other side Microsoft made a business decision to continue to filter search results based on the feelings of the Chinese Government.

Search engines: Could China be a boon for Bing?

As Google pulls out, Microsoft faces a delicate challenge in a red-hot market.

Microsoft’s Bing search engine has gained little traction in China since launching last year. In fact, there was even a slight hiccup before launch, as the company was forced to alter the search engine’s branding for the Chinese market: “Bing” can translate to either “cold” or “sick.” Now it seems the ongoing feud between rival Google and the Chinese government could provide an opportunity for Bing to gain share, but it won’t be easy.

In March, after a cyber attack on its servers, Google shut down its Chinese site and refused to continue censoring search results in accordance with local law, as it had done since 2006. The company now redirects traffic to its Hong Kong site where the search results are unfiltered, although Google acknowledged the Chinese government could still block access for mainlanders.

That would leave roughly 30% of the Chinese search market up for grabs. Microsoft declined to comment on its plans for Bing in China, other than pointing to a blog post written by CEO Steve Ballmer in January. Ballmer both reaffirmed the company’s commitment to “protecting and advancing free expression” in the world while simultaneously abiding by local laws, such as those in China that require censorship.

More. . .

According to the reasearch firm ComScore, Bing gained .5% in July 2009.  Currently, Bing has an 8.9% marketshare compared to Google’s 64.7%.  It is noteworthy to point out that Bing had 8% of the marketshare when it was reintroduced to the masses in June.

When(/if) the Yahoo Microsoft Search deal goes through my question is, how much money will Microsoft spend to gain marketshare?  Is there a price?  Once the marger goes through Microsoft won’t be able to hide behind Yahoo any longer, it will be time to play the game.

Here is an article from Tech Crunch:

Bing’s Marketshare Continued To Creep Upwards In July

by Jason Kincaid on August 17, 2009

Another month, another report that Bing is chiming slightly louder. Analytics firm comScore has just released its latest figures on search market share, and once again Microsoft’s search engine has managed to grow while its competitors have seen modest losses.

Bing launched to the public on May 31, when Microsoft held 8.0% search marketshare. Over the course of June and July, the site has gained nearly a full percentage point — it’s up to 8.9%, and growth was actually higher for July than for June, when the site was getting all of its launch attention. Of course, Bing’s marketshare still pales in comparison to Google’s dominant 64.7%, but at least Microsoft is heading in the right direction.

Once again, it looks like Bing’s gain comes at Yahoo’s expense, at least to some extent. Since May, Yahoo has dropped from 20.1% to 19.3%. Google has dropped a more modest .3%, from 65% to 64.7%. We saw a similar pattern last month, when we pointed out that Yahoo was losing marketshare both from below (Bing) and above (Google).

The rest of the story . . .

Both Microsoft and Yahoo maintain their own Map, Yellow Pages, and Local listings.  The following is a great article from Matt McGee at SearchEngineLand.com:

What Micro-Hoo Might Mean For Local Search

Jul 31, 2009 at 1:19pm ET by Matt McGee

As the dust begins to settle on the Microsoft-Yahoo search deal, we’re finding that this week’s announcement raised as many questions as it answered. The companies told Danny and Greg that the agreement covers “web, image, and video search.” But what about the many search verticals that Yahoo and Microsoft are involved in? These are areas that, if not technically covered by the “web, image, and video search” label, are certainly highly connected to those products. And they’re likely to feel the impact of Micro-Hoo’s plans in some way, at some point.

One of those verticals is the Local/Maps space. Below are my thoughts on what the Microsoft-Yahoo deal could mean for local search, but first something of a disclaimer: I have no insider knowledge on what will happen, only speculation and even a wish list of what I’d like to see happen. At the same time, I think it might be fair to say that many inside the walls at Microsoft and Yahoo also don’t know what will happen with local and other search verticals. The two companies only referred to having “options” on Wednesday, which suggests that many details are still TBD.

What We Know

As explained on Wednesday, Yahoo’s crawled search results will come from Bing (assuming the deal goes through), but Yahoo will “own the user experience” and can present those search results however it wants on Yahoo search. But, to answer a local search query, search engines rely on a lot more than just crawled search results. They use maps, business listings (their own and from other sources), ratings and reviews (ditto), and more. When Danny and Greg asked about local and mobile, Yahoo EVP Hilary Schneider said that Yahoo has an option to use Microsoft technology/products beyond crawled search results, but isn’t required to do so.  More . . . .

Analytics and reasearch firm StatCounter has compiled and released their search number for the month of July.  According to the report Bing gained nearly 1.24% market share as Google lost about 1% in market share.

Bing looks like it has the right foundation to start to compete with Google.  With their recent partnership with Yahoo, Microsoft also announced that they will be hiring 400 of Yahoo’s employees that worked on the search platform at Yahoo.  I think that in a very short period of time we’ll see the Bing engine begin to refine and produce more relevant search results.

Here is the source article from Mashable.

Microsoft has finally bought their way into the Search Game. Microsoft announced today that they will be partnering with Yahoo to provide a Search product for both companies. Yahoo will effectively be out of the search business but ultimately will handle all of the combined companies’ advertisers.

Based on current market share numbers, assuming the deal passes regulatory inspection, that Microsoft would own 28% of the search business while Google will still own 65%. My hope is that some of the engineers from Yahoo will help refine Bing a little bit. Bing needs a few tweaks (”live” news, search relevancy, etc.), but definitely seems to be on a very sound foundation. We seem to forget that Google had (and still does) relevancy issues. While I don’t expect Bing to transform search overnight but I think in the months and years to come it will be a formidable competitor to Google.

With both Yahoo and Microsoft joining forces to fight Google, that two heads are better than one. They certainly couldn’t chip away at Google’s dominance when they were alone.

TechCrunch has a full coverage on the Microsoft/Yahoo deal.