Bing denies copying Google search results

Google's search experts have labelled rival search engine Bing as a "cheap imitation" after claiming that its results "increasingly look like an incomplete, stale version of Google".

Google planted 100 synthetic terms into its algorithm after suspecting results were being copied and it found that these queries were showing on Bing within a week of appearing on Google.

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In a blog post, Google's Amit Singhal said suspicions were raised last October when there was "a significant increase in how often Google's top search result appeared at the top of Bing's ranking for a variety of queries". He said that it was a statistical pattern too striking to ignore.

Engineers decided to plant 100 synthetic terms - which are words and queries that no user would be expected to search for - into its results. For each synthetic query Google put a unique webpage as the top result that actually had nothing to do with the query.

One example given in Singhal's blog was for hiybbprqag. Google's results had been fixed so that the top results for this term was a seating chart for a theatre in Los Angeles.

The word had no relation to the result as it didn't appear anywhere on the webpage, nor did any links on the theatre page send the user to a page that did. Singhal added that these synthetic queries were the equivalent of putting marked bank notes into a bank.

A couple of weeks later engineers found the same result on Bing. Singhal said: "The only connection between the query and result is Google's result page." This pattern was then found on a number of other queries as well.

Bing denies the claims.

Stefan Weitz, director of Bing told Web User: "We do not copy Google's search results. We use multiple signals and approaches in ranking search results. The overarching goal is to do a better job determining the intent of the search so we can provide the most relevant answer to a given query.

"Opt-in programs like the toolbar help us with clickstream data, one of many input signals we and other search engines use to help rank sites."

In a response blog, Harry Shum, corporate vice president at Bing said that the story was "a spy-novelesque stunt" and a "creative tactic by a competitor", adding that Bing actually take it as a bank-handed compliment.