Does Bing Need Europe?

A simple look at Google traffic will tell you that the majority of its users come from Europe. Even though its headquarters are located in California, a massive number of Europeans use the search engine, which has no local competition. Although Bing and Yahoo! are popular in the US, they are only second to Google in Europe, with a market share of less than 10% in the continent. The reasons for this are not surprising.

Bing has brought a lot to the search engine category in the US. It brings a lot more focus to user behavior and its Maps provision is much better and more reliable than Google’s, turning it into the ‘decision engine’ that it claims to be. On the other hand, Bing in Europe has nowhere near the capabilities of Bing US. The basic features are all present but the ones that set it apart from all the others are not – it is simply a redesigned Live Search. The fact that a company as big as Microsoft made the move of rebranding its search engine upped user expectations and although it looks like it has plans for Bing in Europe, nothing has happened yet.

With announcements of new features such as Bing Street Slide, people in Europe expect their user experience to be the same of that in the US, and they are disappointed when they find out it is not. This hurts its reputation and even when it does eventually roll out all its features, people will not be convinced and market share will be harder to gain. Why, then, is Bing taking so long to pull its act together?

Microsoft needs time to set up all the different country-specific databases and close deals with European content providers, but more importantly, it is trying to perfect its US version before launching it in Europe to avoid mistakes. Although it may look like a corporation as big as Microsoft does not need to expand into Europe, it may be missing out on a lot of opportunities because of the privacy issues Google is experiencing. Does Microsoft need the market share Europe will bring? According to Remi van Beekum, a Dutch blogger, “focusing on one thing doesn’t mean you have to totally neglect the rest.”

Europe needs Bing too. Having more than one search engine would greatly improve the quality of search results and the “web-savvy-ness” of Europeans. Businesses are relying more and more on Google products, and if anything happened to Google, their business could be ruined. Bing would give these companies an alternative and make them less vulnerable. Although it does not look like Bing will be making any sudden moves towards Europe, it would be a great idea to set up your Bing Webmaster Tools account to optimize your presence when it does happen.

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