MSN Explorer: Search the Internet

  • Article

The dashboard always contains a Bing search box that you can use to carry out Internet searches without opening the Bing website.

  1. At the top of the dashboard, in the Bing search box, type a search term. To help make your search more effective:

    • Make sure that you spell your search words correctly. Remember to leave a space between each word in your query.

    • Use search words that are likely to appear in the websites that contain the information that you want. The more specific your search words are, the more specific your results will be.

    • Common words such as a, and, and the are ignored unless they're surrounded by quotation marks. Use the OR and NOT keywords to combine or exclude words.

      For example, car OR truck or tree NOT evergreen.

    • If the first page or two of results don't provide you with what you want, or if you don't get any results at all, try changing your search terms. Try fewer descriptive words, or try words that have a different but similar meaning. A different word or phrase provides different search results.

      For example, try alloy instead of metal or steel.

    • To search for an exact phrase, place the phrase within quotation marks.

      For example, "short evergreen tree".

    • If your search includes a date, try typing the name of the month instead of the calendar number.

  2. To search the Internet, click the search button Search, or press ENTER.

    - or -

    If you're looking for a specific type of result, such as images, maps, news, or videos, after you type your search term, click the arrow next to the search button Search, and then click one of the search vertical buttons. When you click a search vertical button, it remains selected by default until you select another.

Note

  • If you carry out a search with certain third-party search engines, such as Yahoo! or Google, your search term may automatically appear in the Bing search box on the MSN dashboard. Click the search button Search to carry out the same search with Bing and get a greater variety of search results.

  • To open the Bing website, on the navigation bar, click Bing. Or, to open the Bing website for a particular search vertical, point to the Bing button, click the arrow, and then click a search vertical.

  • To repeat a search that you've carried out recently, click the arrow next to the Bing search box on the MSN dashboard, and then, under Search History, click the search term that you want.

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