More than two weeks ago, I wrote that I was going to switch to using Bing fulltime for at least two weeks, to see how it truly compares to Google. Rather than just searching for one or two things, as many do, I chose to use Bing and only Bing for at least two weeks. I wanted to give it a proper test. And you know what? There isn't anything about it that makes me want to switch back to Google.

It's surprising, because, I've used Google for as long as I can remember, and when I first looked at Bing when it launched I (like many others) dismissed it as another attempt by Microsoft to win in the search market. But it's not just "another attempt", it's a damn good attempt that I'm confident will result in Bing being the #2 search engine with a third or more of the market within the next year. Of course, that will be a direct result of their recent deal with Yahoo!, which is currently #2, but it will end up resulting in there being a very strong competitor to Google.

Competition has been one of my reasons for wanting to try, and now use, Bing. When there's no one attacking your business, because, let's face it Yahoo! is horrible competition to the likes of Google in search, you tend to stop innovating and there is no change. In Google's case, it's not so much that they had started to ignore search, but rather nothing new was coming (at least that the public saw), until Bing was launched. Since Bing has launched Google's image search has been drastically improved as a direct result of Bing's own image search, and Google's "caffeine" project has been announced. As the two continue to try and improve and beat the other, there will only be new things for users to experience in search, and it will only become better and easier.