Warning
Product to be retired Bing Search and Bing Custom Search APIs will be retired on 11th August 2025.
New deployments are not available and existing resources will be disabled. Learn more
Quickstart: Use PHP to call the Bing Web Search API
Use this quickstart to make your first call to the Bing Web Search API. This PHP application sends a search request to the API, and shows the response. Although this application is written in PHP, the API is a RESTful Web service compatible with most programming languages.
Prerequisites
Here are a few things that you'll need before running this quickstart:
- PHP 5.6.x or later
- A subscription key
Enable secure HTTP support
Before we get started, locate php.ini and uncomment this line:
; extension=php_openssl.dll
Create a project and define variables
Create a new PHP project in your favorite IDE or editor. Add opening and closing tags:
<?phpand?>.Confirm that the
$endpointvalue is correct and replace the$accesskeyvalue with a valid subscription key from your Azure account.Optionally, customize the search query by replacing the value for
$term.
$accessKey = 'enter key here';
$endpoint = 'https://api.bing.microsoft.com/v7.0/search';
$term = 'Microsoft Bing Search Services';
Construct a request
This code declares a function called BingWebSearch that's used to construct requests to the Bing Web Search API. It takes three arguments: $url, $key, and $query.
function BingWebSearch ($url, $key, $query) {
/* Prepare the HTTP request.
* NOTE: Use the key 'http' even if you are making an HTTPS request.
* See: http://php.net/manual/en/function.stream-context-create.php.
*/
$headers = "Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key: $key\r\n";
$options = array ('http' => array (
'header' => $headers,
'method' => 'GET'));
// Perform the request and get a JSON response.
$context = stream_context_create($options);
$result = file_get_contents($url . "?q=" . urlencode($query), false, $context);
// Extract Bing HTTP headers.
$headers = array();
foreach ($http_response_header as $k => $v) {
$h = explode(":", $v, 2);
if (isset($h[1]))
if (preg_match("/^BingAPIs-/", $h[0]) || preg_match("/^X-MSEdge-/", $h[0]))
$headers[trim($h[0])] = trim($h[1]);
}
return array($headers, $result);
}
Make a request and print the response
This code validates the subscription key, makes a request, and prints the response.
// Validates the subscription key.
if (strlen($accessKey) == 32) {
print "Searching the Web for: " . $term . "\n";
// Makes the request.
list($headers, $json) = BingWebSearch($endpoint, $accessKey, $term);
print "\nRelevant Headers:\n\n";
foreach ($headers as $k => $v) {
print $k . ": " . $v . "\n";
}
// Prints JSON encoded response.
print "\nJSON Response:\n\n";
echo json_encode(json_decode($json), JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);
} else {
print("Invalid Bing Search API subscription key!\n");
print("Please paste yours into the source code.\n");
}
Put it all together
The last step is to validate your code and run it. If you'd like to compare your code with ours, here's the complete program:
<?php
$accessKey = 'enter key here';
$endpoint = 'https://api.bing.microsoft.com/v7.0/search';
$term = 'Microsoft Bing Search Services';
function BingWebSearch ($url, $key, $query) {
$headers = "Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key: $key\r\n";
$options = array ('http' => array (
'header' => $headers,
'method' => 'GET'));
$context = stream_context_create($options);
$result = file_get_contents($url . "?q=" . urlencode($query), false, $context);
$headers = array();
foreach ($http_response_header as $k => $v) {
$h = explode(":", $v, 2);
if (isset($h[1]))
if (preg_match("/^BingAPIs-/", $h[0]) || preg_match("/^X-MSEdge-/", $h[0]))
$headers[trim($h[0])] = trim($h[1]);
}
return array($headers, $result);
}
if (strlen($accessKey) == 32) {
print "Searching the Web for: " . $term . "\n";
list($headers, $json) = BingWebSearch($endpoint, $accessKey, $term);
print "\nRelevant Headers:\n\n";
foreach ($headers as $k => $v) {
print $k . ": " . $v . "\n";
}
print "\nJSON Response:\n\n";
echo json_encode(json_decode($json), JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);
} else {
print("Invalid Bing Search API subscription key!\n");
print("Please paste yours into the source code.\n");
}
?>
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/services/cognitive-services/computer-vision/",
"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"
}
}
]
}
}
}