Bing! And the Google is gone!

Today I'm (finally) taking the step of doing something that I've wanted to do for several years. That is give up Google. Given that I work in the digital industry this is something which is very hard. My life seemingly is centred around Google. I use Google to search. I use Google to communicate. I use Google for just about everything. Last year I did 7736 searches on Google which works out over 20 a day (I think it was actually higher than that, but still).

Note to self - Get out more on Sundays
 
Despite the fact that I'm very happy with what Google does for me and the results it gives me, I've decided that for the month of March, I'm going to stop using Google in all forms. This means no more Gmail (for personal use) and no more searches to help me in my work. Given that I still oversee dozens of SEO projects for our clients, I can't do away with it completely, so am limiting myself to using Google for occasional client ranking analysis and Google Analytics.

I've decided to switch to Bing. I think that the time is right to find out more about how it works and also why it has grown so much in the last few months. Spending over $100m on advertising can only get you so far, the user experience and results provided are what is going to keep users searching their and not on Google. Oh, and Bing will also be powering Yahoo! search results so this will sort of be killing two birds with one stone (if you don't know anything about the Bing & Yahoo deal, this is a great place to start).

There are a number of questions I want to answer in the next month by doing this;

• Is Bing really a good alternative to Google? Does it offer enough to its users to make the switch?
• What makes websites rank highly in Bing?
• Will the recent announcement that Bing and Yahoo! are allowed to work together mean a real change in the digital marketing landscape?  
•  What are the key features that make Bing great (and we can expect to see copied by others)
• What is it really like to use Bing on a daily basis? (I don't think any real SEOers have actually done this)

There has been much hype about Bing being a viable alternative to Google for some time but by our own admission, we haven't spent enough time using it day in, day out to actually know if it will be. Today is the start of that journey.

I will be posting weekly findings on here to answer the questions set and to explain more about how the Bing experience has gone. If you have any questions you'd like answering, please leave them in the comments.