Ohhh Hiybbprqag!

It’s not too often that something involving SEO hits mainstream media… like Microsoft Bing caught dipping their hands into Google’s algorithm. Hiybbprqag was one of the fake words Google Engineers used in controlled tests designed to catch a Bing.

Bing Gets Served – The Colbert Report

Most of us SEO types first read about Bing getting busted courtesy Danny Sullivan, here’s his post that stoked the firestorm of media coverage.

Personally, I feel like this is another let down in a long-line of let downs handed down over time by Bing. Let’s be honest, Bing is Microsoft’s ‘old’ Live search engine with a shiny wrapper on it. And, before that it was MSN Search. Same tech, different brand.

Prior let down? Let’s see… how about a huge marketing campaign centered around paying people to use Bing. Brilliant, slather some cash on-top of those non-relevant search results. Who cares about quality when there’s free coins involved?

I remember the days of yonder when there were multiple, quality search engines abound. So many choices that each provided different, yet relevant results. With Bing copying Google and showing those results on Yahoo!, we basically have one true engine that controls them all – Google.