I wrote the title above because I wanted to keep it short. It’s more like Google traffic dropping down a cliff into the abyss while search traffic from Bing is going up steadily, but without making up for the major Google dip.
Bing is becoming more and more popular
One thing is clear to me: Bing is becoming more and more popular as a search engine. The websites I am talking about today are several years old, and their Bing traffic has been steady.
So I’m not seeing this increase in Bing search traffic because my rankings on their search engine are improving, nor because there’s new content ranking.
I believe that the only reason why I see more visitors from Bing is that Microsoft’s search engine is starting to get more and more traction with regular users. Which can be a good thing – diversification is key, including search engine traffic.
For the fun of it, here is how things look like for one of my websites – the one that was hit the hardest starting the HCU and which doesn’t seem to be able to recover, despite me trying everything I could think of (no AI content on this site, either):
And here is the latest Bing Webmasters report:
Here is another site, also on the decline on Google:
But getting some love from Bing:
As you can see, the increase in traffic from Bing, although more than appreciated, is nowhere close to matching the drop in Google traffic.
But this makes me draw some conclusions: maybe some of the drops we’re seeing on Google search traffic are because they’re losing market share to other search engines; also, not all is lost for those of us indie publishers who have been smashed and trashed by recent Google updates.
Why is Bing becoming more popular?
Google’s search results have been pretty crappy, going from bad to worse in the past several months.
People are no longer able to get the answer they want from searching on Google.
It’s not necessarily Google’s fault – it’s some of us, the website owners or bloggers or SEOs or whatever you want to call us, who are trying to game the system.
But, in the end, ever since I started blogging back in 2008, people were trying to game the system and managing to do it for a shorter or longer period before getting slapped back into oblivion by Google.
Right now, Google seems to be completely out of the loop. They are definitely trying to take measures and right the wrongs (or at least they claim they do), but so far the results are less than satisfying.
And while the vast majority of people used to head over to Google will still do it no matter what results it delivers, some are probably trying the alternatives. Hence Bing’s surprising yet small rise in popularity.
Going all in on Bing?
The biggest problem with Bing is that it still has a very low market share, but it is going up. Search Engine Land wrote recently that Bing’s market share grew from 6.35% to 7.87% in the US in February 2024 (compared to last year), while the global market share grew from 2.81% to 3.43%.
This is great to see, especially by the people like myself who have been hit so badly (and, I would dare say, wrongfully) by their latest updates.
Going all in on Bing is something I would say I was already doing with all my websites. I’m playing it VERY safe when it comes to SEO and blogging in general, so everything I did for Google optimization is what is supposed to work on Bing too.
And it’s working, looking at the results.
There’s not much you can do… but if you don’t have a Bing Webmaster Tools account, I strongly recommend signing up for one and adding your site(s) there.
Apart from the extra traffic you can get from Bing, they also offer some nice optimization tips, tell you about potential errors and even have a built-in keyword research tool (using Bing’s data).
I do believe that many people will see great success if they switch their focus a bit more on Bing… and alternate traffic sources, overall.
Wrapping up
I don’t see Google going away anytime soon, and they might even be able to sort their ranking bots up and right the wrongs they have done since September 2023.
At the same time, I don’t see any reason not to try and switch focus from Google only to other search engines – Bing being the best right now – and also other traffic sources – from all social media websites out there to building a newsletter.
If Google doesn’t care about us, small publishers, despite their near-monopoly over the search market, we still have other options. Not as lucrative as SEO for Google search… but at least we have options.