Call your Bing Custom Search instance from the Portal

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.

After you've configured your custom search experience, you can test it from within the Bing Custom Search portal.

a screenshot of the Bing custom search portal

Create a search query

After you've signed into the Bing Custom Search portal, select your search instance and click the Production tab. Under Endpoints, select an API endpoint (for example, Web API). Your subscription determines what endpoints are shown.

To create a search query, enter the parameter values for your endpoint. Note that the parameters displayed in the portal may change depending on the endpoint you choose. See the Custom Search API reference for more information. To change the subscription your search instance uses, add the appropriate subscription key, and update the appropriate market and/or language parameters.

Some important parameters are below:

Parameter Description
Query The search term to search for. Only available for Web, Image, Video, and Autosuggest endpoints
Custom Configuration ID The configuration ID of the selected Custom Search instance. This field is read only.
Market The market that results will originate from. Only available for the Web, Image, Video, and Hosted UI endpoints.
Subscription Key The subscription key to test with. You can select a key from the dropdown list or enter one manually.

Clicking Additional Parameters reveals the following parameters:

Parameter Description
Safe Search A filter used to filter webpages for adult content. Only available for the Web, Image, Video, and Hosted UI endpoints. Note that Bing Custom Video Search only supports two values: moderate and strict.
User Interface Language The language used for user interface strings. For example, if you enable images and videos in Hosted UI, the Image and Video tabs use the specified language.
Count The number of search results to return in the response. Available only for Web, Image, and Video endpoints.
Offset The number of search results to skip before returning results. Available only for Web, Image, and Video endpoints.

After you've specified all required options, click Call to view the JSON response in the right pane. If you select the Hosted UI endpoint, you can test the search experience in the bottom pane.

Change your Bing Custom Search subscription

You can change the subscription associated with your Bing Custom Search instance without creating a new instance. To have API calls sent and charged to a new subscription, create a new Bing Custom Search resource in the Azure portal. Use the new subscription key in your API requests, along with your instance's custom configuration ID.

Next steps