Google Fires Back At Bing, Launches “Explore Google Search”

Jun 17, 2009 at 5:10pm ET by Danny Sullivan

I wrote earlier that it was probably driving Google crazy to see people “amazed” that Bing is doing stuff that Google itself has long offered. Now Google’s fighting back. The first shot? A new Explore Google Search page.

Google’s had help pages like this before. For example, this one still remains, showing various special features such as the ability to get weather results. But this new page is being featured right from the Google home page:

The page frames many of Google’s features in an easier-to-read format:

And it comes with an introduction highlighting how serious Google is about search:

Search is at the heart of everything we do at Google. Our engineers work every day to solve the hardest search problems, and thus improve your online experience. Here’s a glimpse at what they do, the features they’ve built and the remarkable user stories that inspire our work.

As I said before:

Google’s never really had to market itself to consumers, to trot its stuff. The recently held “Searchology” event didn’t cover anywhere near the range of what Google offers. But if the praise for Bing keeps largely rolling in — if people keep discovering features that aren’t necessarily unique to Bing — Google may find it has to step up.

To me, this page is all about doing that stepping up. Of course, the page is well worth reviewing, for those who aren’t aware how Google can provide everything from sports scores to flight tracking. As can Bing, and as can Yahoo.

Danny Sullivan is editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land. He’s a widely cited authority on search engines and search marketing issues who has covered the space since 1996. Danny also oversees Search Engine Land’s SMX: Search Marketing Expo conference series, maintains a personal blog called Daggle and microblogs on Twitter as @dannysullivan.

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sean, June 17th, 2009 at 5:24 pm ET:

While I don’t see a direct link from the Google.co.uk home page, there is a localized UK version http://www.google.co.uk/landing/searchtips/ . No such luck though for non-English cheat sheets, http://www.google.de/landing/searchtips/ and http://www.google.it/landing/searchtips/ seem to return the US English version.

nickstamoulis, June 18th, 2009 at 11:20 am ET:
Premium member since 06/2009

Hi Danny, This is typical of MSN/Live.com, Now Bing…offering something that Google has offered in a re-packaged format for years…it should be fin to see how Bing can and/if they can compete…

chiropractic, June 18th, 2009 at 1:06 pm ET:
Premium member since 01/2009

While Google may have had those features for years, I suspect many of us that search frequently, were not fully aware of them.

One thing that catches my eye on Bing, is the more web 2.0 look the pages seem to have.

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