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Just in time for the Holiday shopping season, Bing unleashed an ad campaign attacking Google for its switch to a pay-to-play system for listings in Google Shopping. Microsoft has even created and defined a new word for the occasion--Scroogled--a verb that means "The new Google practice of selling its shopping search results to a high bidder." This practice was phased in over the summer of 2012. As of October 17, only merchants within the US who pay appear in Google Shopping results.

Interestingly, Bing partakes in similar pay-to-play tactics, but does not disclose this openly. Even so, Bing has been getting lots of media attention for the ad. In the midst of this Scroogled campaign, the question that looms over the search engine marketing horizon is...in spite of its entertainment value, will it really make a dent in Google search domination? It is unlikely. According to a Comscore survey, Google has 66.9% of the market.