Testing Bing, Part 2: The Features – Result Preview

Rather than click on a result and see what you’ve found, it’s very helpful to be able to get a bit more information right from the search results page. Both Google and Bing both offer tools to help with this:

Google presents a sort of Table of Contents for the search result, if possible. It will also reveal a few other helpful hints when it can, like the stock quote link here. Bing presents a similar ‘Also on the page’ section, although it’s hidden until you move your mouse over the result. Some results have links to the various sections on the page. You’ll also note that Bing presents me with the number for Customer Service; that’s a nice touch.

I’m not really sure which one is better here; it seems to depend on the exact search. They both try to go deeper into the page, with varying degrees of success.

The verdict: Tie. Neither engine seems to have a serious advantage here. They could both use some improvement.