Meet Bing. The decision engine, as Microsoft calls it.
Let’s try to type “linux” in the search box. This is what happens (confront with Google results):
The “windows” keyword appears as the second result. Try to reproduce the result yourself (you may have to set Bing to a English speaking country, I set mine on English-US), a list of result will pop up.
Let’s click on the first:
The above are facts, to the best of my knowledge, not opinion.
This is opinion.Will Linux spread to the point of becoming a serious competitor to Windows on the desktop? No. And this has nothing to do with which is better, no matter how you judge “better”.
Consider the keyboard in front of you. The key arrangement was made long ago when keeping the metal wires connected to the keys from hitting each other was the big consideration. Now that that no longer applies, does anybody switch over to a keyboard with a better design? No. All of us who know how to type, are used to the current arrangement of keys. Switching to a new layout would be a major disruption and thus have to pay back in a major way. I don’t think desktop versions of Linux will pay back enough to encourage people to switch. My Linux experience is not extensive, but coming to it with a Windows background, as most people will, it is often frustrating to figure out how to do ordinary everyday things.
Servers are another story. So too are call centers and other single-use environments where Linux makes a lot of sense.
Let’s click on the second:
If you really want the security and performance of a Unix-based OS but with a customer-focussed attitude and an world-renowned interface: Buy an Apple Mac. OS X is great. But don’t get Linux: It will not do what you want it to do.
It’s not just about “Why should I want Linux?”. It’s also about “Why should Linux want me?”
ZOMG !
What’s this crap ? It’s obvious that Microsoft didn’t pay those guys. (well.. maybe the first 
). But why Windows came up as a suggestion for the Linux search, and why the first two posts talk respectively about ‘Linux being inferior to Windows‘ and ‘the issues with switching to Linux‘ ?.
If I were to think bad I would think Microsoft did tweak the Windows keyword to have more relevance than the others. Hyperlinking and pagerank would do the rest.
But I’d never think bad, would I ?
In fact, I just think Bing is crap. And now you know why they call it the decision engine.
Update: Apparently Microsoft likes forcing things. Users of Internet Explorer 6 are forced to use Bing. Fair enough, if you still use IE 6, you deserve it.
[ source reddit ]
[...] Microsoft tweaks search results to promote its commercial agenda. Stefano Forenza shows that Bing is biased against GNU/Linux, possibly by design. What’s this crap ? It’s obvious that Microsoft didn’t payed those guys. [...]
Looks like you need to tweak your grammar. You were so excited to burn Microsoft you forgot to proofread. (hint: payed)
@Red Foxx: I wasn’t excited. I just have a bad english.
Well, here I don’t agree with you. There is no propaganda and Microsoft is not tweaking any results. Try putting in “Ubuntu” in the search. You’ll get suggestions like: “ubuntu download”, “ubuntu server”, “ubuntu studio”. Where’s the tweaking here? Bing uses a totally different algorithm than google, and is currently in a very early stage of it’s life. Search results are bound to mature over the years. I’m not saying Bing is better than google. We’ll have to wait and see whether it happens. Google is still light years ahead of Bing with really smart search (today I typed Roland Garros in Google search and it showed me latest scores at the top as a result, also take Google calculator and many other things), but then again, Bing is new. Also, I don’t like the name they chose for the branding. Bing, with its casual tone and youthful nature goes totally against the Microsoft brand image, which is one of sophistication, perfection and professionalism.
One search for the keyword “Linux” maketh not a software propaganda. Try searching for “unix” and see the results yourself. Search for “Open Office”, “mac os X”, “ipod”, “GIMP”and “open source”. Also search for “I hate Microsoft” and see the results. You’ll realise that there is no propaganda. It’s one thing to love Linux. I like it too. But that doesn’t mean yo have to hate microsoft or call all it’s products crap. I personally like Bing and I don’t think it’s crap.
@Parry: the “being crap” is probably exaggerated, but it’s not that a biased search engine is good for anything.
At first, the Bing engine is not new in any way, to me it looks like to be just Live.com with lipstick
Now, let’s get to the Keyword thing.In my blog post I wrote that I believe that Microsoft tweaked the windows keyword relevance. That was an oversimplification.
Whatever they call it, today’s search engines use the pagerank concept as part of their ranking mechanism. Pagerank basically means assigning a value of some kind to a site based on the links coming from other sites. Every link from another site may have a different value, depending about how important the linking site is.
Can you see the pitfall ? Where does this chain begins ? How can you know how important is the linking site ? You have to determine how important are the sites linking to it. But how important are those also ?
It’s a chain with no end. There it comes the concept of ‘respectable site’. Those sites have tipically a forced page rank, as they are considered ‘trusted’ and ‘famous’ by the search engine, and the page rank distribution flow starts from those.
Example of respectable site include (or used to) Wikipedia and Dmoz.
It’s pretty clear how a (even slightly) biased selection of ‘respectable sites’ may influence the relevance of keywords and query result. That accentuates the of websites about windows. In turn, when you ask for linux, the results returned tend to be slighly more likely those linked from Windows websites and forums.
(guess what would people in windows forum say or ask about linux ? “hey, what’s linux and how is different?” “geez, I tried linux, but I like Windows more.”)
At the same time, you get as less differences as much as your search terms are precise. And no, I don’t think they censor anything nor they tweak results manually.
Now, this is MY take. And seeing how long it was to write you can guess why I didn’t explain better in the post.
Is bing good ? Until they can’t give at least the impression of not being biased I’d say no.
Good explanation about how things work. The debate on “morality” when speaking of search engines is just beginning – Google is not 100% fullproof as well. And when considering usual business practices from Microsoft, I for one would not trust them
But that’s only a personal opinion.