Remember Bing, the search engine Microsoft launched to topple Google? Ok, it didn’t work that way but it still has lots of great features and deserves a second look.
42 Bing Search Engine Tips and Tricks
Here are 25 tips and tricks to get the most from Bing, the decision-making engine from Microsoft.
1. Add your site on Bing
To add your site on Bing, click on http://www.bing.com/docs/submit.aspx
This link sends you to the submit URL page of Bing where you can provide the URL of your blog or website.
2. Area Codes
Area Codes displays the area code or ZIP code. Type area code followed by code. For example, area code 515.
3. Advanced Search Keywords
Using this to find the search results you only what you see. Don’t include a space after the colon in these keywords.
4. Celebrity Tracking
Bing xRank tracks celebrities and ranks them. xRank shows News results, Image results, Video results , biography details, and digg links.
5. Cheap flight tickets
To get the cheap flight deals, enter:
- Deals on specific routes: flights from London to New York
- Deals from a specific city: flights from San Francisco
- Deals to a specific city: flights to Rome
6. Contains parameter refines searches
In Bing, the parameter ‘contains’ tells the search engine to only look for websites that contain that search term. For example
iPhone contains:download
Beatles contains:mp3
Annual Report contains:doc
7. Combine or Excluding words
Use the OR and NOT keywords to combine or exclude words. For example, if you use iphone NOT Green, you will get results for iphone but not for green iphones.
8. Currency Converter
Type ‘convert 100 dollars to euros’ for currency conversion from dollars to euros.
9. Check if your website is listed in Bing.com
To verify that your website is in the index, type url:yoursite.com.
For example, url:ivanwalsh.com returns a single result.
Tip: Check that your robot.txt file allows Bing.com to index your website.
10. Check the number of webpages indexed in Bing.com
Type site:yoursite.com to see how many pages have been actually indexed in bing.com. For example, site:ivanwalsh.com.
11. DHL and UPS Packages
Track DHL, UPS and other packages by tracking number. For example, type DHL 123456789.
12. Display wallpaper images
You can display Bing’ wallpaper images in its Image search results. Search for a term in Bing image search and then click on the Size category in the left sidebar. This automatically display various size filters including an option for wallpaper. This display only images that have the exact size of the computer screen resolution.
13. Exact phrase
To search for exact phrases, enter the search words within quotation marks. For example, “natural asthma remedy”.
14. Export Session History to SkyDrive
Session History records the sites you visited within a single browser session for 48 hours. You can also save searches to your Windows Live SkyDrive folders using My Search Folders view.
Tip: You can also send your search queries by email or publish them on your Facebook account via Bing.
- Click the Manage link under the previous search queries at the bottom of the Explore Pane.
- In the History Management page, browse through past searches and identify the query you’re looking for
- Click on the link to pick up where you left off.
- To save a search, click Save and Share on the right of the screen.
- Check the boxes next to the results you want to save and click Save.
- Create a new folder to save the search or sign in with Windows Live ID and save the results to your Windows Live SkyDrive.
15. Find Organizations
To find results about golf but that primarily pertain to the organization, type golf prefer:organization.
16. Find Blogs
To see blogs from the BBC websites, type “blogging” (site:bbc.co.uk) .
17. Find RSS feeds
To find RSS feeds about iphone, type feed:iphone.
18. Find RSS feeds of particular website
To find webpages on the New York Times website that contain RSS feeds, typesite:www.nytimes.com hasfeed:iphone. ‘hasfeed:’
Finds webpages that contain an RSS feed on a website for the terms you search for.
19. Firefox Plugin for Bing
Bing provides great general search results, relevance, a big index and speed — all of the hallmarks of a good search engine.
However, because sorting through search results can often be time consuming, Bing organizes popular results in a different way, designed to help you get the answers you’re looking for without having to guess the right way to phrase a search term. https://addons.mozilla.org
20. Search Bing.com if outside USA
If you are outside the US, you may not be getting all Bing’s features and only it’s localized version. To view all the options in Bing, which may not be available in your region, go to http://www.bing.com/worldwide.aspx and set English – US as your default region.
21. Hotels
Use the following as examples:
- New York hotels
- hotels in Egypt
- Dublin hotels
22. Hulu Videos
Search for any TV show episode on Bing Videos. Hover the mouse over the video thumbnail to watch a short clip.
- Click on Videos from the Bing Home Page.
- Click on TV Shows from the Explore Pane.
- Search for ‘house’ from the top search box.
- In the Explore Pane, click on ‘Source’ and choose from where you want to see your results.
- To see a full-length, high-quality video, choose Hulu.
23. Job Salary
For example – Type LosAnglelesmarketing manager salary, developer pay in Bangalore, IT Manager pay.
24. Images by Format and Type
Bing can tell the difference between a photograph and an illustration. Use the similar images link when you hover over an image to see similar related images.
25. IP Address lookup
Use Bing to lookup any IP address
IP:[IP Address]
Change [IP Address] with a valid IP, such as the IP address you want to track.
26. Mathematical Equations
Enter the equation that you want to solve, for example:
7+5/2-(45*2)
sqrt 9
sin 11 * 66
13% of 994
27. Preview Search Results
Hover over any search result and a small bar with a bubble appears. If you hover over the bubble, it gives you a preview of the landing page on the site.
28. RSS Feeds from search results
You can save every search on Bing into an RSS feed. This means you can pull the search results into your blog or website and increase your web traffic.
Access the feeds from the browser’s toolbars (or by pointing a feed reader to the search result’s URL) and then add
&format=rss
to the results.
A search for Snagit v 9 would be available as an RSS feed from the following URL
http://www.bing.com/search?q=Snagit+9&go=&qb=1&format=rss
29. Remove Bing background image
To remove the background image in Bing’s search engine, enter the following url:
This displays the homepage without the background image, making the download faster.
31. Search sites with filetype
To search for websites that contain links to Microsoft Windows Media Audio (.wma) files, type music contains:wma.
32. Search for files with a particular filetype.
To find document created in PDF format, type the name of the document, eg report, followed by filetype:pdf.
33. Snow reports
Type ‘snow report’ followed by a city. For example, type snow report Cairo.
34. Stock Quotes
In the search box, type the ticker symbol followed by stock or quote. For example to find the financial quotes of Microsoft, type MSFT stock or MSFT quote.
35. Statistical Information
In the Bing.com search box, type what you want to find. For example, population of England, or iphones in USA.
36. Track Flight Status
To see the status of your flight:
flight status for United – enter the flight number and press Get Status .
flight status – Bing prompts you to enter the flight name and number on the first result itself.
Enter the flight name and number and click Get Status.
37. MP3 Music Files
Type U2 contains:mp3 will show pages that are about U2 and link to MP3 files.
38. Web pages for a specific language
To find results in a particular language, select the language code after the language: keyword. For example, if you are searching for laptops then type “laptops” language:en.
39. Web pages from a specific country
Enter the country or region code directly after the loc: keyword. Use a logical OR to include one more language. For example, to see web pages about wine from the France or Italy , type wine (loc:FR OR loc:IT). Image results are shown at the bottom of the page.
40. Used Cars
VIN provides protection against buying a used car with hidden problems.
Type the VIN number and hit Search.
41. Unit Conversion
In the Bing search box, type the quantity, followed by in, followed by the conversion.
For example, type 15 kilometers in miles or 33 degrees F in Celsius.
The operator ‘in’ convert units of measurements for distance, weight, time, volume, and temperature.
42. Change the Wallpaper
Click the icon in the lower right corner to see yesterday’s Bing wallpaper.
Got any favorite features in Bing? Please add them below.