Who wins? Google & Bing’s ‘Super Bowl ad’ search results are quite different

Searches for 'Super Bowl ads' will surge ahead of Sunday's kickoff. Here's what the engines are serving up.

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Searches for “Super Bowl ads” are about to heat up as we head into Sunday. People turning to Google and Bing for information about the official Super Bowl Lii commercials will find very different treatments of the results on each of the engines.

Here’s a look at how those results compare. Going in alphabetical order, we’ll start with Bing.

Bing’s carousel of Super Bowl ads

Whether people are searching Bing on desktop or mobile, they’ll see a carousel at the top of the results featuring Super Bowl Lii commercials.

Clicking on any of the thumbails in the carousel brings up the search results for the specific ad including a video player to watch the commercial. The carousel remains at the top of the page so users can easily navigate to more of the commercials.

Super Bowl Ads Bing Serp

Below the carousel is a list of related searches and news results about the query “Super Bowl Ads”.

Here’s how the results look on mobile:Bing Mobile Super Bowl SERP

Bing is not serving any paid search text ads on generic “Super Bowl ad”-related results at this time, but several of the brands are running text ads that appear just above the video player in the individual results for their commercials.

Here’s what the carousel result for the Dorito’s Blaze vs. Mtn Dew commercial looks like on Bing, for example:

Super Bowl Ads Bing Mountain Dew Serp

Google takes a traditional approach

The search results on Google for “Super Bowl Ads” look like a fairly typical results page from the engine. Text ads usually appear at the top followed by Top stories listings and traditional organic results.

The screenshot below features a text ad from Tostitos, but text ads promoting Super Bowl commercials for Lexus, Rookwood Pottery and the Australia Tourism for the “New Dundee Movie” have also been spotted.

Super Bowl Ads Google Serp

Google’s mobile search results are similar, with Top Stories appearing below a text ad.

Google Mobile Serp Super Bowl Ads 2018

So which search engine do you think serves up the best experience for Super Bowl ad queries?


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

Ginny Marvin
Contributor
Ginny Marvin was Third Door Media’s former Editor-in-Chief (October 2018 to December 2020), running the day-to-day editorial operations across all publications and overseeing paid media coverage. Ginny Marvin wrote about paid digital advertising and analytics news and trends for Search Engine Land, MarTech and MarTech Today. With more than 15 years of marketing experience, Ginny has held both in-house and agency management positions. She can be found on Twitter as @ginnymarvin.

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