Google v Bing: The Hiybbprqag Affair
Did Bing get busted copying Google? This is truly a sting operation for the Information Age. Google makes up a word (e.g. hiybbprqag) and temporarily rigs its search engine to point that word at a real but obviously irrelevant site (a seating chart for the Wiltern Theatre in Los Angeles). A few weeks later, when you enter hiybbprqag into Microsoft’s Bing search engine, you get this: Open-and-shut case, right? No such thing. I won’t rehearse all the furious, mind-churning debates that have ensued. For my money the best real-time analysis has come from Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Land, here and then a few days later here. If you want to sample more, an efficient way to track the conversation is now—ready for some irony?—to google (or bing) the word hiybbprqag. Bing would never have noticed these nonsense words without a bit of help, so Google provided the help.