10 Super Bing Search Tips

You have to give it to Microsoft. Even though they are fighting what appears to be a losing battle with Google for search dominance, they’re still hanging in there. Heck, every now and then they manage to land a jab or two. Take last months U.S. search market share numbers for example, which saw Google decline from 66.3 percent to 66.2 percent, while Bing’s share rose from 11.5 percent to 11.8 percent. It also has a new ally on its side, facebook, which has opened up its to data, allowing Bing to show what your friends have searched for or liked.

Regardless of the market share numbers, competition is good, and the race for search superiority has benefited Bing, Google, and best of all, you. Here are the tools—some new and some classic—that prove it.

Let Videos Find You

Use Bing’s video search to view snippets from CBS, ESPN, Hulu, MTV, and YouTube. Enter your query and select “Video” on the left panel.

Filter Your Image Search

Drill down in your hunt for photos, artist renderings, and graphics with Bing’s filters for size, color, layout, and people. Enter a query and select Images on the left panel. Options to refine your search will be on the left as well.

Sync with Facebook

Search Bing and results that your friends have Liked or interacted with on Facebook will appear at the top. (You need to adjust your privacy settings in Facebook to enable this feature.)

Search Visually

Bing’s Visual Search (www.bing.com/visualsearch) makes search faster with visual representations of your query. For example, if you enter “weekend’s top 10 movies,” you’ll see a list of the movie posters for each flick. Search with your eyes for sports leagues, teams, and players, Emmy award winners for a given year, top iPhone apps, and more.

Shop Faster

Complete your shopping errands faster with Bing Shopping. Use filters to find what you want quickly. For instance, you can customize a shopping search for “2.1 speakers” by brand (Altec Lansing, Creative, Kilpsch, or Logitech), price (Up to $35, $35 to 60, $60 to 100), retailer (Amazon, Newegg.com, Overstock.com, Sears), and other options.

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