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. 

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. 

 

The analytics include call volume, top query strings, geographic distribution, and more.  A pricing tier different from the F0 pricing tier is required to collect the statistics. It increases the subscription rate as well.  The data is updated every 24 hours and retained for 13 months with history that can be accessed from the analytics dashboard. The MSA account authorized to view the dashboard is the same one as the Bing statistics. 

The charts and graphs displayed on the analytics dashboard allow filtering and drill down. Data can be filtered based on resources, markets, endpoints and reporting periods. The ResourceID must be unique since it denotes the Azure subscription.  There can be many IDs when there are many Bing Search API tiers. The markets are where the results come from. All the resources and the markets are included by default. If the caller does not supply a market or if it is unknown, the en-WW market is selected by default. All the endpoints from the Bing search API are included by default. The time frame to select for the charts and graphs includes the option to select all data from the maximum retention period, a custom date range less than the maximum, past month, past week and the past 24 hours. 

 

The call volume shows the number of calls made during the reporting period. It may differ from the billing report because only the successful calls are included for billing purposes.  

 

The top queries and the number of occurrences of each query are displayed and the number can be configured. The paths for which the top queries are not available include /images/trending, /images/details, and similar for videos, news and suggestions. 

 

The response code distribution alone is quite helpful to seeing traffic patterns as well as for troubleshooting client errors. The server-side errors are usually rare and most of the errors are mistyped URLs resulting in Http status code 404 but a variety of other codes are also likely. Their distribution is one of the most helpful charts on the dashboard. 

 

The call origin distribution enumerates the type of browsers sending the requests. Calls from outside the browser are grouped under the libraries. The origin is determined using the request’s User-Agent header value. 

 

The safe search distribution provides the distribution based on the corresponding query parameter value with values for ‘off’, ‘moderate’ or ‘strict’. 

Distributions based on other query parameters such as responseFilter and responseServer are also rendered because the cost for categorizing the requests based on these query parameters are similar and they provide incredible value. 

 

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.