Bing Inflating Search Numbers Through Promotion?
Bing has been running a promotion that rewards searchers with points that can be used to purchase items such as gift cards, vacations, contest entries and more. I have redeemed points earned through my Bing searches for Xbox Live points.
Over the past few months Bing’s PR staff, and some search professionals, have praised the search engine for increasing search share, but how much of it actually legitimate? In August it took 3 searches to earn 1 point and in September only 2 were required. The data below shows Bing’s September 2011 search numbers and a dip from the previous month.
How many people come to Bing, search for a random word, and then just click the related searches 20 times and get their allotted 10 points for the day? I do.
Since Bing has been running this campaign for quite some time now and has been gaining market share according to Venture Beat, how much traffic is actually from single searches and not incentivized searches with no real value?
Dan is currently the Sr. Manager, Online Marketing at Citrix / ShareFile. 