What Time Is The Super Bowl? Google & Bing Are Confused

You might get information for 2015, depending on how you ask.

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As Super Bowl 50 approaches, people will begin searching more and more for the starting time (kickoff is 3:30 p.m. PT on Sunday, Feb. 7, 2016). But right now, both Google and Bing live in the past, depending on how you ask.

“What Time Is The Super Bowl?” Madness

So many people search for the start time of the Super Bowl each year that news publications have vied against each other for ages to rank tops for the query.

In 2014, Google tried to make it easier for searchers by introducing a direct answer box. Do a search for “when is the super bowl” on Google now, and you can see one of these appearing with the correct day and time for Super Bowl 50:

when is the super bowl

Last month, the box was getting the day wrong. That’s been fixed. But Google’s woes are back if you search for the Super Bowl 2016 start time in a different and popular way.

Google’s Living Like It’s 2015

On Google, a search right now for “what time is the super bowl” brings up a direct answer at the top of the page, one drawn from a Huffington Post article:

what time is the super bowl

The information showing is for last year, including listing the teams for last year (This year’s teams obviously aren’t known).

If you change that search slightly to another popular search, “what time does the super bowl start,” then the correct answer appears:

what_time_does_the_super_bowl_start_-_Google_Search

Bing’s Wins & Losses

Bing gets it right for two of the searches, “when is the super bowl” and “what time is the super bowl,” as shown below:

when is the super bowl bing

what time is the super bowl

However, if you ask Bing “what time does the Super Bowl start,” then like with one of Google’s answers, it acts like it’s 2015 and provides old information:

what time does the super bowl start

By the way, when the Super Bowl does actually start, our sister site, Marketing Land, will be ready with our annual Hashtag Bowl coverage of all the ads. For more about that, see our post today: Game On: The 2016 Marketing Land #HashtagBowl Is Coming Soon.


Opinions expressed in this article are those of the guest author and not necessarily Search Engine Land. Staff authors are listed here.


About the author

Danny Sullivan
Contributor
Danny Sullivan was a journalist and analyst who covered the digital and search marketing space from 1996 through 2017. He was also a cofounder of Third Door Media, which publishes Search Engine Land and MarTech, and produces the SMX: Search Marketing Expo and MarTech events. He retired from journalism and Third Door Media in June 2017. You can learn more about him on his personal site & blog He can also be found on Facebook and Twitter.

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