42 Bing Search Engine Hacks

November 13, 2010 By Ivan

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:

http://www.bing.com/?rb=0

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.