Citigroup conducted a study comparing 200 queries on Google, Yahoo and Bing. The study found that Google is much more relevant than Bing, in returning relevant results. Google returned the most relevant result 71 percent of the time, compared with Bing at 49 percent of the time and Yahoo 30 percent of the time.

The queries picked were pulled mostly from Google Zeitgeist, Microsoft’s xRank and Yahoo Buzz in the categories of Entertainment, Health, Local, News, Retail, Sports, Travel and Other. Then after running the 200 queries, Citigroup picked the winner based on two criteria:

1) Relevancy of the organic search results; and 2) Robustness of the search experience, which included factors such as image and video inclusion, Search Assist, and Site Breakout.

Here are some of the charts from the study:

Greg covered how many searchers preferred Bing’s look over Google, but said they would stick with Google as the default engine.

For more coverage on this study, see paidContent.org and AllThingsD.

Related Topics: Channel: Strategy | Stats: Relevancy

About The Author: Barry Schwartz is Search Engine Land's News Editor and owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here. For more background information on Barry, see his full bio over here. See more articles by Barry Schwartz

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