Chitika: Bing outperforms Google?

It may be too early to make a definitive statement at this point, but new research from search advertising network Chitika indicates that Bing's search platform may be outperforming Google's. According to the research, consumers who land on sites as the result of organic listings on Bing's engine are 55% more likely to click on an advertisement than those who arrive on-site from Google's engine.

by Kristina Knight

Chitika researchers analyzed click through rates from more than 30 million ad impressions on more than 50,000 websites over the course of one week in July. They found that consumers finding themselves on a website via Bing's engine clicked on just over 1% of ads while consumers who arrived on sites via Google only clicked on 0.97% of ads. Yahoo showed a 1.24% click through rate. Still, Google serves up the most ad impressions (26.9 million) and the most clicks (260,518). Yahoo ranks behind Google with 3.2 million impressions and just over 39,000 click throughs. Bing ranks third with 2.2 million ad impressions and 33,558 click throughs.

This isn't to say that Google's engine isn't working. Marketers need to keep in mind that Bing is relatively new to the search race and while consumers are logging on, searching and clicking, much of this, from a consumer standpoint, could be simple excavation. Consumers want to see how new search engines, websites and tools work and as they research. These clicks, while great, don't necessarily mean that consumers will stick with Bing.

The real determining factor will be whether or not consumers will continue using Bing as the newness wears off. Only then will marketers know which engines will give them greater ROI.

Tags: Bing, Chitika, Google, organic search, paid listing, paid search, search engines, search marketing, Yahoo