Quickstart: Search the web using the Bing Web Search REST API and C#

Warning

On October 30, 2020, the Bing Search APIs moved from Azure AI services to Bing Search Services. This documentation is provided for reference only. For updated documentation, see the Bing search API documentation. For instructions on creating new Azure resources for Bing search, see Create a Bing Search resource through the Azure Marketplace.

Use this quickstart to make your first call to the Bing Web Search API. This C# application sends a search request to the API, and shows the JSON response. Although this application is written in C#, the API is a RESTful Web service compatible with most programming languages.

This example program in this quickstart uses only .NET Core classes.

Prerequisites

Here are a few things that you'll need before running this quickstart:

• Windows: Visual Studio 2017 or later
• Linux/macOS: Visual Studio Code and .NET Core
• A free Azure subscription

Create an Azure resource

Start using the Bing Web Search API by creating one of the following Azure resources:

Bing Search v7 resource

• Available through the Azure portal until you delete the resource.
• Use the free pricing tier to try the service, and upgrade later to a paid tier for production.

Multi-service resource

• Available through the Azure portal until you delete the resource.
• Use the same key and endpoint for your applications, across multiple Azure AI services.

Create a project and declare dependencies

Create a console project in Visual Studio or VS Code. Use the following code to import the required namespaces and types:

using System;
using System.Text;
using System.Net;
using System.IO;
using System.Collections.Generic;

Declare a namespace and class for your program

In this quickstart, we'll put most of the code in the Program class. Start by creating the BingSearchApiQuickstart namespace and Program class in your project.

namespace BingSearchApisQuickstart
{
    class Program
    {
        // The code in the following sections goes here.
    }
}

Define variables

A few variables must be set before we can continue. Add this code to the Program class you created in the previous section:

1. For the uriBase value, you can use the global endpoint in the following code, or use the custom subdomain endpoint displayed in the Azure portal for your resource.

2. Confirm that uriBase is valid and replace the accessKey value with a subscription key from your Azure account.

3. Optionally, customize the search query by replacing the value for searchTerm.

// Enter a valid subscription key.
const string accessKey = "enter key here";
/*
 * If you encounter unexpected authorization errors, double-check this value
 * against the endpoint for your Bing Web search instance in your Azure
 * dashboard.
 */
const string uriBase = "https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/bing/v7.0/search";
const string searchTerm = "Microsoft Cognitive Services";

Declare the Main method

The Main() method is required and is the first method invoked when you start the program. In this application, the main method validates the accessKey, makes a request, and prints the response.

The main() method is dependent on methods that you create in the next sections.

static void Main()
{
    Console.OutputEncoding = System.Text.Encoding.UTF8;
    if (accessKey.Length == 32)
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Searching the Web for: " + searchTerm);
        SearchResult result = BingWebSearch(searchTerm);
        Console.WriteLine("\nRelevant HTTP Headers:\n");
        foreach (var header in result.relevantHeaders)
            Console.WriteLine(header.Key + ": " + header.Value);

        Console.WriteLine("\nJSON Response:\n");
        Console.WriteLine(JsonPrettyPrint(result.jsonResult));
    }
    else
    {
        Console.WriteLine("Invalid Bing Search API subscription key!");
        Console.WriteLine("Please paste yours into the source code.");
    }
    Console.Write("\nPress Enter to exit ");
    Console.ReadLine();
}

Create a struct for search results

Create a struct that returns search results with relevant headers. You call it when you make a request to the Bing Web Search API to create a result object.

// Returns search results with headers.
struct SearchResult
{
    public String jsonResult;
    public Dictionary<String, String> relevantHeaders;
}

Construct a request

Use this code to construct the search query, perform the GET request, and handle the response.

/// <summary>
/// Makes a request to the Bing Web Search API and returns data as a SearchResult.
/// </summary>
static SearchResult BingWebSearch(string searchQuery)
{
    // Construct the search request URI.
    var uriQuery = uriBase + "?q=" + Uri.EscapeDataString(searchQuery);

    // Perform request and get a response.
    WebRequest request = HttpWebRequest.Create(uriQuery);
    request.Headers["Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key"] = accessKey;
    HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponseAsync().Result;
    string json = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream()).ReadToEnd();

    // Create a result object.
    var searchResult = new SearchResult()
    {
        jsonResult = json,
        relevantHeaders = new Dictionary<String, String>()
    };

    // Extract Bing HTTP headers.
    foreach (String header in response.Headers)
    {
        if (header.StartsWith("BingAPIs-") || header.StartsWith("X-MSEdge-"))
            searchResult.relevantHeaders[header] = response.Headers[header];
    }
    return searchResult;
}

Format the response

This method formats the JSON response, primarily by indenting and adding line breaks.

/// <summary>
/// Formats the JSON string by adding line breaks and indents.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="json">The raw JSON string.</param>
/// <returns>The formatted JSON string.</returns>
static string JsonPrettyPrint(string json)
{
    if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(json))
        return string.Empty;

    json = json.Replace(Environment.NewLine, "").Replace("\t", "");

    StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
    bool quote = false;
    bool ignore = false;
    char last = ' ';
    int offset = 0;
    int indentLength = 2;

    foreach (char ch in json)
    {
        switch (ch)
        {
            case '"':
                if (!ignore) quote = !quote;
                break;
            case '\\':
                if (quote && last != '\\') ignore = true;
                break;
        }

        if (quote)
        {
            sb.Append(ch);
            if (last == '\\' && ignore) ignore = false;
        }
        else
        {
            switch (ch)
            {
                case '{':
                    case '[':
                        sb.Append(ch);
                        sb.Append(Environment.NewLine);
                        sb.Append(new string(' ', ++offset * indentLength));
                        break;
                    case ']':
                    case '}':
                        sb.Append(Environment.NewLine);
                        sb.Append(new string(' ', --offset * indentLength));
                        sb.Append(ch);
                        break;
                    case ',':
                        sb.Append(ch);
                        sb.Append(Environment.NewLine);
                        sb.Append(new string(' ', offset * indentLength));
                        break;
                    case ':':
                        sb.Append(ch);
                        sb.Append(' ');
                        break;
                    default:
                        if (quote || ch != ' ') sb.Append(ch);
                        break;
            }
        }
        last = ch;
    }
    return sb.ToString().Trim();
}

Put it all together

The last step is to run your code. If you'd like to compare your code with ours, see the sample code on GitHub.

Example JSON response

Responses from the Bing Web Search API are returned as JSON. This sample response has been truncated to show a single result.

{
  "_type": "SearchResponse",
  "queryContext": {
    "originalQuery": "Microsoft Cognitive Services"
  },
  "webPages": {
    "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=Microsoft+cognitive+services",
    "totalEstimatedMatches": 22300000,
    "value": [
      {
        "id": "https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/api/v7/#WebPages.0",
        "name": "Microsoft Cognitive Services",
        "url": "https://www.microsoft.com/cognitive-services",
        "displayUrl": "https://www.microsoft.com/cognitive-services",
        "snippet": "Knock down barriers between you and your ideas. Enable natural and contextual interaction with tools that augment users' experiences via the power of machine-based AI. Plug them in and bring your ideas to life.",
        "deepLinks": [
          {
            "name": "Face",
            "url": "https://azure.microsoft.com/services/cognitive-services/face/",
            "snippet": "Add facial recognition to your applications to detect, identify, and verify faces using the Face service from Microsoft Azure. ... Cognitive Services; Face service;"
          },
          {
            "name": "Text Analytics",
            "url": "https://azure.microsoft.com/services/cognitive-services/text-analytics/",
            "snippet": "Cognitive Services; Text Analytics API; Text Analytics API . Detect sentiment, ... you agree that Microsoft may store it and use it to improve Microsoft services, ..."
          },
          {
            "name": "Computer Vision API",
            "url": "https://azure.microsoft.com/products/ai-services?activetab=pivot:visiontab",
            "snippet": "Extract the data you need from images using optical character recognition and image analytics with Computer Vision APIs from Microsoft Azure."
          },
          {
            "name": "Emotion",
            "url": "https://www.microsoft.com/cognitive-services/en-us/emotion-api",
            "snippet": "Cognitive Services Emotion API - microsoft.com"
          },
          {
            "name": "Bing Speech API",
            "url": "https://azure.microsoft.com/services/cognitive-services/speech/",
            "snippet": "Add speech recognition to your applications, including text to speech, with a speech API from Microsoft Azure. ... Cognitive Services; Bing Speech API;"
          },
          {
            "name": "Get Started for Free",
            "url": "https://azure.microsoft.com/services/cognitive-services/",
            "snippet": "Add vision, speech, language, and knowledge capabilities to your applications using intelligence APIs and SDKs from Cognitive Services."
          }
        ]
      }
    ]
  },
  "relatedSearches": {
    "id": "https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/api/v7/#RelatedSearches",
    "value": [
      {
        "text": "microsoft bot framework",
        "displayText": "microsoft bot framework",
        "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+bot+framework"
      },
      {
        "text": "microsoft cognitive services youtube",
        "displayText": "microsoft cognitive services youtube",
        "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+cognitive+services+youtube"
      },
      {
        "text": "microsoft cognitive services search api",
        "displayText": "microsoft cognitive services search api",
        "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+cognitive+services+search+api"
      },
      {
        "text": "microsoft cognitive services news",
        "displayText": "microsoft cognitive services news",
        "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+cognitive+services+news"
      },
      {
        "text": "ms cognitive service",
        "displayText": "ms cognitive service",
        "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=ms+cognitive+service"
      },
      {
        "text": "microsoft cognitive services text analytics",
        "displayText": "microsoft cognitive services text analytics",
        "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+cognitive+services+text+analytics"
      },
      {
        "text": "microsoft cognitive services toolkit",
        "displayText": "microsoft cognitive services toolkit",
        "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+cognitive+services+toolkit"
      },
      {
        "text": "microsoft cognitive services api",
        "displayText": "microsoft cognitive services api",
        "webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/search?q=microsoft+cognitive+services+api"
      }
    ]
  },
  "rankingResponse": {
    "mainline": {
      "items": [
        {
          "answerType": "WebPages",
          "resultIndex": 0,
          "value": {
            "id": "https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/api/v7/#WebPages.0"
          }
        }
      ]
    },
    "sidebar": {
      "items": [
        {
          "answerType": "RelatedSearches",
          "value": {
            "id": "https://api.cognitive.microsoft.com/api/v7/#RelatedSearches"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  }
}

Next steps

Bing Web Search API single-page app tutorial

See also

• What is the Bing Web Search API?
• Bing Web Search API v7 reference