SXSW 2011 has transformed into an unexpected battleground for two search engine titans. It’s still Google versus Bing, warring at the largest tech event in the United States. Although expectations of a bloody clash did not happen, it is very obvious that their predictable answers to queries are intended to stab the archenemy.

A little over a month, Google’s search engineer Amit Singhal directly accused Bing of copying their search results saying: “I’ve spent my career in pursuit of a good search engine. I’ve got no problem with a competitor developing an innovative algorithm. But copying is not innovation, in my book.” He furthered, “We noticed that URLs from Google search results would later appear in Bing with increasing frequency for all kinds of queries: popular queries, rare or unusual queries and misspelled queries. Even search results that we would consider mistakes of our algorithms started showing up on Bing.”

Today at SXSW, although shots were not directly fired at each other, you know there is tension between seatmates Google’s anti-spam lord Matt Cutts and Bing’s webmaster Duane Forrester. Both took questions in well and the discussion revolved around content and how it profoundly affects keyword search. Cutts explained his “litmus test” and how site appears on search results, while Forrester stressed that they set steep standards at Bing when it comes to indexing and good use of content.

Both Google and Bing have been quite visible at SXSW 2011. Each of them provided insights and tips on how to improve website rankings and how to appeal if your site is blocked or is poorly performing in searches. Google, as the scene stealer they are, have more updates than its nemesis. Marissa Mayer, Google’s VP of Consumer Products noted in her speech that “location” is one of the hottest items in their organization at present.

Madalena David of SiliconAngle laid out Google’s plan on location-based apps and services: “Google sees location as being central for the future of Google products, considering that over 150 million people use Google Maps. Location-based services, especially for mobile devices, is the central point of development for Google, especially location-based services including new releases of Maps for mobile, check-ins, deals, augmented reality and ‘contextual discovery’ explained by Google as organizing information, reviews and deals around a given location.”

Talking about location being the centrifugal force drawing massive attention at the SXSW 2011, Foursquare made sure they will have something to show off. Prior to the event, they went out of the norm and launched Foursquare 3.0—an app that brings together analytics, statistics and “specials” management in one. In his speech, Tim O’Reilly noted that Reagan’s act of opening navy and air GPS to public makes him the father of Foursquare. But, nothing aggravatingly exciting.

While the biggies roam around freely at the SXSW 2011, promising startups are oftentimes more fun to watch.

[image credit ZDnet]