Despite its efforts to show the effectiveness of it search engine, Bing has struggled to resonate with consumers and SEO marketers. However, Amazon provided the company with a boost by making Bing the default search engine on the latest series of Kindle tablets, Ubergizmo reported last week.
The first Amazon Kindle Fire boasted Google as its primary search engine. However, Silk, Amazon’s browser designed specifically for its Kindle, will default to Bing on the new tablets. Interestingly, Kindles run on a customized version of Android, Google’s mobile operating system, so this will be the first instance of an Android-powered device not primarily using Google’s services.
As the Kindle evolves, it’s likely that more browsers, including Chrome, will become available, which will allow owners to use the search engine of their choice. Even now, users can navigate to Google.com for search if they choose to, but Bing’s presence as the default search engine could help the company win new users.
Even now, users can navigate to Google.com for search if they choose to, but Bing’s presence as the default search engine could help the company win new users.
Ultimately, Bing’s issues in the eyes of consumers have little to do with any inferiority in terms of providing quality results for users and more to do with Google’s hegemony. Even as Alan Bleiweiss of Forensic SEO found Google actually indexes more pages than Bing, people use Google because they’ve always used Google don’t see a reason not to. A greater presence on the Kindle will help, but it will take more for Bing to become a greater force in a search market as Google currently leads by a massive margin.
Brafton reported last week that Bing hopes to show users how valuable its results can be with BingItOn.com, a tool that lets people search for a series of terms and choose which results they liked best. While the feature is exclusively designed for desktop search, Bing’s issues extend to mobile search as well.
Google’s Android currently accounts for more than 52 percent of smartphones in use in the United States, according to comScore. This means more than half of all American smartphone owners likely use Google for mobile searches. Conversely, Microsoft Windows Mobile operating system powers just 3.6 percent. Moreover, Windows Mobile’s growth has ceased in 2012, as comScore found its market share fell from 4 percent in April to its current 3.6 percent.
