It may be impossible for Microsoft to catch up to Google in search. But it still keeps trying.
On Wednesday Microsoft unveiled a series of upgrades to its Bing search engine and related products. None promised to be a Google killer. Rather, they were modest tweaks that are part of what Satya Nadella, senior vice president for Bing, described at a press event in San Francisco as "a continuous arms race for search quality."
Microsoft's search had 11.8 percent of the market in November, up from 11.5 percent in the prior month, according to comScore. Google, in contrast, dominated with 66.2 percent, down slightly from 66.3.
The challenge for Microsoft is to make its search engine significantly better than Google's, to give users a reason to switch. Microsoft has made some small gains in market share, but it has yet to make a major leap in its technology that would cause Google users to defect en masse.
The upgrades include these:
- Searchers on Bing will find new categories within its instant answers for popular topics like movies and travel. The instant answer for "The Social Network," the film about Facebook, offers links to show times, a trailer and reviews, for instance.
- Bing enhanced its visual search engine to automatically suggest subcategories for a query like "Casablanca," for example, "Casablanca movie" and "Morocco Casablanca."
- In maps, Microsoft has introduced interior layouts of shopping malls, among other places, so that users can more easily navigate their way to Banana Republic and other stores. Indoor maps are unavailable on Google's mapping service.
- In local, users will be able to peek inside restaurants, hotels and stores. Microsoft has partnered with EveryScape, a company that offers interior panoramas for thousands of locations, to provide the service.
- Microsoft has built on an existing partnership with Facebook to indicate results that have been "liked" by a searcher's friends on other sites. The idea is that users will probably find those links more helpful because a friend has already vetted them.