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What is Bing Custom Search?

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Note

This documentation is for Bing Search Services. If you're looking for the Cognitive Services version of the documentation, see Cognitive Services Bing Custom Search.

Bing Custom Search lets you create a tailored, ad-free search experiences for topics that your users care about. You specify the domains and webpages that Bing searches. You can also pin, boost, and demote specific content to create a custom view of the web that helps your users quickly find relevant content. To create your custom view, use the Bing Custom Search portal.

After defining your view, integrate it into your website or application by calling Bing Custom Search API. As an option, you can configure a searchable user interface that you render within your website or application.

How Bing Custom Search works

Get started

To get started using the API, pick the subscription you want from Bing API Pricing. After getting your subscription key, you're all set to make your first call.

You can easily call the API by sending a native HTTP GET request or by using the Custom Search SDK. For examples to help you get up and running quickly for either option, see Quickstarts.

Features

Custom Search provides the following features:

Feature Description
Define your view of the web Identify the content that your users care about.
Define a search experience that you host within your website or app Configure and host a search experience that you can integrate into a webpage or app using JavaScript.
Share your custom search instance Collaboratively edit and test your search instance with teammates.

After defining your custom view of the web, use the following APIs to query its content.

  • Custom Search API — Lets your users search for webpages and more from the domains and sites specified in your custom search instance.
  • Custom Image API — Lets your users search for images from the domains and sites specified in your custom search instance.
  • Custom Video API — Lets your users search for videos from the domains and sites specified in your custom search instance.
  • Custom Autosuggest API — Lets you provide suggested search strings to your users as they type in your search box.

Search or search-like experience

Bing Custom Search API may only be used as a result of a direct user query or search, or as a result of an action within an app or experience that logically can be interpreted as a user’s search request. For illustration purposes, the following are some examples of acceptable search or search-like experiences.

  • User enters a query directly into a search box in an app.
  • User selects specific text or image and requests “more information” or “additional information”.
  • User asks a search bot about a particular topic.
  • User dwells on a particular object or entity in a visual search type scenario.

If you are not sure if your experience can be considered a search-like experience, check with Microsoft.

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