They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, which might explain why Dell this week decided to entirely lift Apple’s ‘Pro’ and ‘Pro Max’ naming conventions for its own laptops this week. And now, here comes Microsoft with an even more flagrant example of what we might generously call ‘borrowing’.
The company has been slammed for dressing its Bing search results page web design to resemble that of another somewhat well-known search engine. Search for ‘Google’ on Bing, and you’d be forgiven for thinking you’d actually left the latter site. Alas, it turns out you’re still very much on Bing.
(Image credit: Future)
Not only does the search results page entirely resemble Google’s with its Google-esque ‘doodle’ (an extremely generic take on the best Google doodles) and text layout, but it also automatically scrolls down just enough to hide the requisite Bing branding at the top of the page.
And it isn’t just users who’ve found the tactic a little underhand. On Twitter, Google Chrome’s security chief Parisa Tabriz called the move a “new low” for Microsoft, citing it as “another tactic in [Microsoft’s] long history of tricks to confuse users and limit choice.”
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, but Microsoft spoofing the Google homepage is another tactic in its long history of tricks to confuse users & limit choice. New year; new low @Microsoft https://t.co/LKSNNKB7HyJanuary 6, 2025
It seems the Google-ified web design only appears when Bing users search for Google while not logged in. Still, from the automatic scrolling down to the obviously imitated doodle, this does seem a pretty low move from Microsoft. If the team does decide to create something with an iota of originality, they could do worse than checking out our guide to the best web design software.
