Bing Search API   

 

Introduction: This article is a continuation of the series of articles starting with the description of SignalR service. We followed up with a discussion of Azure Gateway service, Azure Private Link, and Azure Private Endpoint and the benefit of diverting traffic to the Azure Backbone network. Then we started reviewing a more public internet-facing service such as the Bing API

 

Description:   

Azure Bing API is developer-friendly and provides a robust way of searching custom and scoped content with the same standard as the public internet. A customized search instance can be created using the Bing custom search portal. Bing Search API maintains an index for the internet using web crawlers.  The Bing Search API is also an Azure Resource available via the Azure Marketplace. We reviewed the use Bing API together with Cognitive service text analytics for brand management in this article.  It featured the use of natural language processing with this sample.But there are other kinds of analysis also possible. Bing provides comprehensive Bing statistics which can be enabled on the Bing Azure Resource via the Azure Portal. Predefined dashboards show the results from the analytics which we followed up on in another article. This one focuses on the requirements from using the public facing Bing web search engine API.

 

The use and display requirements apply to any implementation involving content, relationships, metadata and other signals emitted by the Bing Web Search APIs. All the apis for each of the entities are subject to these requirements. The term content is used to include answers which are the search query results returned in response to a request to a Bing Web Search API. The response is more than just the answer and carries some envelope information. Each answer may have several search results and their attributes and the term content refers directly to an answer. One of the primary requirements is that any content may only be used in internet based search experiences. This experience follows up on user initiated search query and is pertinent only to that query. It helps the user find and navigate to the response’s data answer. The user is empowered to select from the many search results returned. There must always be an indication that the content came from a web search query. Finally, there is a requirement for disclosure such that no laws are broken.

 

Aside from the requirements, the restrictions include the following: 1) prevent copy, store or cache the data from responses except as required for continuity across calls 2) prevent the data from usage for machine learning purposes because the data should be fetched directly from the source instead of relying on the search results which may vary, 3) prevent the content from being modified or tampered with, 4) prevent removal of attributables to the origin of the search result, 5) prevent reordering of the search results, 6) prevent the display of content that was not part of the response, 7) prevent the display of advertising that did not already come with the response, and 8) prevent additional ads to be shown on the page where the content is rendered.

 

Compliance requires a few additional criteria such as the privacy statement and the trademark usage guidelines must always be included as links and featured prominently. This implies that those links will be attributed to Microsoft but does not imply that any particular portion of the response is displayed from the Bing Custom Search API.

 

Conclusion: These are the ways in which the Bing Search Web API can be used, and it is available as just another cloud resource along with the benefits that come with a cloud service.