I just switched my default search engine from Bing to Google.

Before you start laughing… hear me out. I’m a techy. I bought the first generation iPhone way back in 2007. I’ve owned dozens of phones since… ranging from Android, Blackberry, Windows Mobile, Windows Phone, WebOS. I’ve immersed myself in various ecosystems (I wrote a big ecosystem post on my personal blog). I’ve also tried out Chromebooks as a replacement to cheap Windows PCs. I know tech. I also know Google… more than most.

So why did I spend the last year doing all of my personal web searches exclusively on Bing?

Back before 2006… I, like many others, was using Yahoo as my default search engine. I heard about Google and started using it (I also switched over from Juno Email to the far superior Gmail at the same time). Search engines are a funny thing… you can’t run two or three search results and immediately know that one search engine is doing it’s job better than the other.  You need to invest time into trying a new search engine… and after about 3 months of using Google, I was hooked. I started using Google Maps instead of Mapquest, I stopped using AOL Instant Messenger and started using Google Chat. I tried out Google Docs and Spreadsheets instead of Microsoft Office, which didn’t last but it proved a point. Google controlled my digital life… and I didn’t like it.

Microsoft came out Bing in 2009. It wasn’t much different from the Live Search engine that they had touted before… but it had welcomed additions like Travel, movie showtimes, and mobile searching. With a bad run with Android… I was willing to give Microsoft a chance. I bought a Windows Phone and was pushed into the world of Bing (I had a dedicated Bing button on my Samsung Focus). Many people knocked me for it… but many people knocked me for using Google back in the Yahoo/AOL days. So I didn’t think much of people’s ragging on my Search Engine use.

I started working at Blueprint and continued to use Bing… but only in my personal life. I used Google at work and used Bing at home. It was great. Unlike most people… I had a great comparison between the two. When I started working at Blueprint… I would find things quicker in Bing than others using Google. I was almost embolden in my Bing use because of situations like that.

But of course… Google isn’t stupid. Like any good company… they were doing the same comparison tests I was and started fixing things. In Google’s big revamp push… I feel that the company has finally gotten search right on the phone… and has earned my blessing (like they really needed it, right?).

One of the things that I love about Blueprint is our drive to learn about all sorts of different platforms and ecosystems. Even though Chrome is the most widely used browser out there, we spend a significant amount of time making sure our sites are IE compliant. To blindly make sites for just Chrome… how would that be different to making sites just for IE? It’s an ignorant way to look at the web… much like a Google search only vision of the web is ignorant. We care about making our sites work with Google, Bing and yes… even Yahoo 🙂

But Google Search is the best 😉

By: Erik