Top tips for using Bing

 

We’ve compiled a quick list of ways to make your internet searches more effective.

1.      Use less words, keep queries simple:  less is more when it comes to search engine queries. A few other things to note are try to avoid generic terms or words such as “the”, “of”, “and” or “to”, type “DEFINE:” to find the definition of a word and know that capital letters and punctuation are ignored by search engines.

2.      Let Bing do the work:  Bing reasons the intent of your search, and brings you answers in the search results. Instead of typing ‘weather for Melbourne’ just type ‘weather’ and Bing will geo locate you, and bring the current temperature to you up front in the search results.

3.      Use the Bing ‘related searches’ feature:  if you’re not sure of exactly what you’re looking for, recent similar or popular queries may help guide you.

4.      Log in and set preferences: search engines let you specify your location, the languages you want to search in or whether to filter out adult content. Bing can then access your past searches and allows you to save searches.

5.      Preview results – don’t waste time by clicking to another page: Bing lets you preview the content of results by mousing over the preview arrow. This saves you clicking away from the results page to find exactly what you’re looking for. Bing video also lets you preview a short clip before clicking by hovering over the thumbnail.

6.      Use the autosuggest feature: as you type, this shows you the most recent successful search on a topic, and may save you typing the whole query.

7.      Start using vertical searches like ‘Bing news’, ‘Bing images’ and ‘Bing video’: search engines gather results from a number of different sources, search verticals enable you to quickly access and refine a particular type of results (news stories only, images or videos only), providing more precise results content.

8.      Download the Bing toolbar: these provide you with more than just a search field. For example the ‘Bing bar’ allows you to browse news stories, check your email, search maps or see your Facebook account in your web browser.

If you have any tips of your own feel free to leave a comment at the bottom of the page.

– Bing AU Product team