Using Bing, Microsoft’s own search engine that challenges Google’s monopoly, is something the company would really, really, really like you to do. It uses a number of devious visual tactics to divert your attention from Google itself, in addition to being built into a large portion of Windows and other Microsoft products, such as the Edge browser. However, its most recent tactic is more, well, devious—in reality, it’s just plain old Google camouflage.
Microsoft is attempting to encourage users to utilize its Bing search engine with yet another ruse. Right now, if you search for Google using Bing without logging into a Microsoft account, you’ll receive a page that looks a lot more like Google.
Users are beginning to discover that when they search for “Google” on the main Bing interface, they are taken to a special Bing search page. Before you scroll down to the actual search results, you are presented with an all-white page featuring a centred, unbranded search bar and a multi-coloured doodle that primarily includes yellow, red, blue, and green.
For this particular search question, Microsoft is obviously trying to make Bing look like Google; other searches simply display the standard Bing search results without this unique UI. Like Google, the Google result has a search bar, an image that resembles a Google Doodle, and even some text beneath the search bar. In order to conceal its own Bing search bar at the top of the search results page, Microsoft even automatically scrolls down the page a little.
It is a clone of the well-known Google search page in a highly useful and (in this writer’s opinion) intentional manner. Giving it a try a person might conduct a few searches in this covert bar without noticing that you haven’t truly left Bing itself if you’re not paying attention. If you haven’t already noticed that it’s essentially a Google doodle, you’ll need to scroll up or down to realize something’s wrong.
Many people may see this screen when they set up a new PC and search for Google in the Microsoft Edge address bar, even though Bing still displays Google search results beneath this fake Google user interface. It’s a cunning tactic by Microsoft to try to keep consumers using Bing rather than Google, as 9to5Google notes.
In an X post made earlier this week, Parisa Tabriz, the head of Google Chrome, expressed her thoughts on Microsoft’s Google spoofing. Although imitation is the purest form of flattery, Tabriz claims that Microsoft’s faking of the Google homepage is just one more ploy in its lengthy history of deceiving people and limiting their options. “A new year means a new low for Microsoft.”
This type of action is typical of Microsoft. Over the past few years, The Verge have compiled a list of every tactic and methods Microsoft has employed to persuade users to abandon Google and Chrome in favour of Bing or Edge. To convince users to stop using Google, Microsoft has altered Chrome download websites, added pop-up advertisements to Google Chrome on Windows, inserted surveys into Chrome download pages, and even utilized pop ups that look like malware.
Although Google uses its own notifications on its websites to entice users to switch from Microsoft Edge to Chrome, they are far less forceful than Microsoft’s use of popups at the operating system level and website changes.
For searches less specific than “google,” “google search,” etc., this special in which a person will never believe it’s not Google” search page does not appear. You can still get the standard Bing interface and results even with something a little less immediate, like “google mail.”
This is a rather desperate appearance on Microsoft’s side, and the aim appears fairly clear. Given Google’s dominance in searches, I don’t blame anyone for feeling a little desperate. Since that is the official ruling of a US federal court, It didn’t refer to it as the Google monopoly carelessly. According to Statista, Google held an incredible 95 percent of the mobile search market as of 2024. This percentage has hardly changed since 2015, with Bing holding less than 1 percent, despite 15 years of support from Microsoft. If you look at the desktop search market, where as of early 2024, Google has “only” 82 percent of the market, compared to Bing’s increasing 10.51 percent, the figures are a little less dire.
So, no, not envious of the Bing team’s giant-slaying mission. Nevertheless, purposefully obscuring a search appears to be a failure of a search engine’s primary function if a user wants Google and searches Bing to obtain it. Microsoft is prioritizing its commercial objectives over its customers, a tactic that never makes people like the product.
One will wonder if Microsoft might benefit from some real reflection on this strategy, given how badly its efforts to get people off of Windows 10 are doing.