I recently reported on the launch of bing.com and how it claims to bring an end to search overload by over-promising their esp capabilities and under-delivering, well, on everything.

You may recall or have heard about about an event that occurred a few years back (2004 election cycle to be exact) when the phrase “miserable failure” returned the bio page of George W. Bush in Google search results (funny right). A group of bloggers had taken it upon themselves to add a whole-lot-a inbound links to the Whitehouse.gov site with the anchor text – miserable failure.

Back then it pulled enough weight in Google’s algorithm so that an anchor text from a large number of inbound links, from various sources could push a listing up in rank… but that has since changed. Now when you search the phrase in Google you will find among other things Wikipedia pages referencing the incident.

Interestingly enough, now when you perform the same search, “miserable failure” in bing…or as they would say if you “bing” the phrase “miserable failure”, then you will see that hmmmm George W. Bush still shows up. But tied to the Whitehouse.gov page? Oddly enough, alongside of good ole W. you see Barack Obama in the organic results and then as “related search options” Martin Luther Kind and Waffles? Yes, of course I get it…um no I don’t. I may have skipped the class in school where Waffles, MLK and W. had something in common.

So what’s your take? Besides that the Whitehouse obviously needs to update their bio pages. Is bing really the one failing misrably? What has your experience been with this new and supposedly improved search engine?