My wife just walked into my office and asked if had the number to our local Long Valley, NJ PNC bank. So like the smart mouth I am sometimes I said "You know there's this thing called Google" and then I gave her the phone number. As she walks out she says "I use Bing!" which was an awesome reply. So out of curiosity I went to Bing and then to Google and typed out the exact same search queery "pnc bank long valley, nj". And do you know what I found, Bing's results were organized better. See these screen shots:
Now we'll look at Bing. Right up at the top is the Long Valley branch phone number. Now it is hard to find it on their local map, but I know it is Long Valley because of the NPANXX combination (908876). Of course at the bottom is the Yellow Pages listing.
Now let's pop over to Google and here's their screen shot. At the top is the main PNC Bank page with some links but nothing there about branch locations and historically those bank branch locators take too many clicks to get the answer. #2 result is Yahoo's local listing where the phone number is which is what I originally gave to my wife. #3 is a job listing and #4 is Google's local listing with a much easier to read map and the phone number.
It is almost like Bing knew I just needed the local branch phone number and not everything else. Google correctly listed the most relevant search for PNC Bank at the top but put the local listings at the bottom which is not quite the order for a local search. Anyway, Google is still #1 for me but Bing offers a good product - Yahoo and the rest are not relevant.
PardonMyFrench,
Eric
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