The Ultimate Guide to Bing Search Operators: Advanced Commands for Power Users and SEOs

If you’ve ever found yourself sifting through irrelevant search results, wishing you could bend search engines to your will, you’ll want to know how to leverage Bing Search Operators. These advanced search commands can transform your Bing experience, uncovering exactly what you need, speeding up complex research, and revealing data even seasoned users often miss.

While Google remains the most widely used search engine, Bing has its loyal following—especially among certain tech-savvy, research-focused, and SEO communities. Knowing how to truly harness Bing’s search operator arsenal opens doors to research tricks, competitive analysis, and content discovery not available on Google, or at the very least, done differently. In this guide, you’ll find every bit of practical knowledge needed to become a Bing search pro, even outpacing existing guides you’ll find ranking in Google.

Understanding Bing Search Operators: What Are They and Why Do They Matter?

Bing Search Operators are special commands or symbols that you add directly into your search queries to modify, filter, or focus the kind of results you get. Rather than endlessly scrolling through generic search results, you can use these operators to search within sites, filter by file type, exclude certain terms, or even discover pages indexed on a particular IP.

Why bother? For anyone who manages websites, hunts for data, analyzes competitors, or runs technical SEO diagnostics, these operators can save hours of manual research. Use them right, and you can:

• Find specific files, topics, or phrases across the web or inside a single website
• Uncover indexing and crawling issues in your own or competitor sites
• Filter out noise, zeroing in on the exact info or data you need
• Effortlessly compare Bing’s behavior against Google’s for SEO or analysis purposes

Bing vs Google: How Do Search Operators Differ?

One crucial thing to understand is that not all Google operators work in Bing, and vice versa—plus, Bing has its own set of unique commands. For SEO experts, analysts, or savvy searchers, this means switching engines may give different results or require different syntax. Operators such as contains:, language:, loc: (or location:), prefer:, hasfeed:, ip:, and url: are either unique to Bing or behave in ways distinct from Google.

For instance, Bing still supports using a plus symbol (+) for including specific words, which Google has generally deprecated in recent years. Additionally, Bing provides robust file type and region/language filters that can deliver highly targeted results when used creatively.

How to Use Bing Search Operators: Syntax and Best Practices

Using Bing operators is simple: add them directly into your Bing search bar, usually followed by the parameter you want to focus on. Some must be written with no space after the colon (e.g., site:domain.com), while commands that act as Boolean operators (AND, NOT, OR) should be capitalized for Bing to recognize them as commands, not just stopwords.

Parentheses can be used to control the precedence or grouping of operators (for example, seo (technical OR local)), and quotation marks (” “) help define exact phrases to match in your search results.

Here are some quick tips:

• Boolean operators (AND, OR, NOT) must be in uppercase, or Bing may ignore them
• All searches in Bing default to an AND search—there’s no need to use AND unless you’re combining with other operators
• Some stopwords are ignored unless forced by quotes or a plus sign
• There should be NO space after colons in most operator commands, or results may not work as intended

Core Bing Search Operators and Their Functions

Let’s dig into the essential building blocks of advanced Bing queries—these are your primary toolkit for transforming plain searches into laser-focused, actionable results.

The Plus Symbol (+): Including Specific Words or Terms

The plus sign ensures that certain words—often stop words Bing would otherwise ignore—are included in your results. For example,

seo +audit (with a space) ensures pages include both “seo” and “audit”.

If you use seo+audit (no space), Bing looks for that exact match—as if you put it in quotes.

This is especially useful for required terms like “the”, “to,” or single letters. Note: Google no longer supports the Plus symbol in this fashion.

The Minus Symbol (-): Excluding Unwanted Words

Placing a minus sign directly before a term forces Bing to omit results containing that word. Example:

seo -audit returns results about “seo” but filters out anything containing the word “audit”.

However, experience has shown that Bing doesn’t always exclude terms as reliably as Google does. Sometimes the unwanted term can still slip into results, or worse, get prioritized, so be prepared for some quirks.

Quotation Marks (” “): Searching for Exact Phrases

Phrases within double quotes will fetch only results containing those exact words, in that exact order. Example: "technical seo audit"

This is vital for finding less competitive, highly targeted content or double-checking for duplicate content and precise data. Use sparingly for best results, as the more generic the phrase, the fewer (or broader) your results may be.

Parentheses ( () ): Grouping and Defining Logic

Parentheses let you control the logic of your searches—grouping words or operators to specify exactly how you want Bing to interpret your query. Example:

seo (technical OR local) brings you results about “seo” that cover either technical seo, local seo, or both. This helps when combining multiple concepts or filtering for several possibilities at once.

AND (or &): Combining Multiple Terms

The AND command, or its ampersand cousin (&), ensures that all specified terms are present in the pages returned.

Example queries:

• "technical seo audit" AND "content audit"
• "technical seo audit" & "content audit"

Although Bing (and Google) default to AND, it’s useful when mixing operators or clarifying complex searches.

NOT (or -): Excluding Terms with Precision

Using NOT (in uppercase) or the minus symbol lets you filter out results you don’t want. Both are recognized by Bing as signals to omit certain words. For example:

• seo NOT technical
• seo -technical

These should produce the same result—pages about “seo” without any mention of “technical”. However, as user feedback indicates, Bing may sometimes ignore these exclusions or apply them inconsistently.

OR (or |): Finding Either of Multiple Terms

OR (needs to be capitalized) lets you search for pages containing either word or phrase specified. This is great for broadening research or covering two related ideas.

Example:

• seo OR ppc
• seo | ppc

When combined with parentheses, you can perform highly advanced queries like seo (ppc OR sem).

Operator Precedence: Managing the Order of Evaluation

Bing evaluates search commands in a set order (operator precedence), which matters when mixing several commands in one query. Here’s the general order:

• Parentheses ()
• Quotation marks “”
• NOT / –
• +
• AND / &
• OR / |

Keep this precedence in mind, and use brackets when you need to enforce your own grouping—especially with OR combinations. For in-depth info, refer to Microsoft’s support docs for Bing operator precedence.

Advanced Bing Search Operators: Powerful Tools for In-Depth Searches

Beyond the basics, Bing boasts a host of advanced, often Bing-exclusive, operators that really ramp up your research abilities. Some of these are unique to Bing, and many work differently than similar Google commands (or don’t work on Google at all!).

contains: (Locate Pages Linking to Specific File Types)

This operator returns pages that include links to files of a certain type—for example, PDFs or image formats. Syntax: contains:pdf

Example: seo contains:pdf would search for SEO-related pages that link to PDF documents. However, user reports and real-world tests have shown this operator works inconsistently on Bing and sometimes returns more relevant results in Google, even though it’s a Bing-specific command.

ext: (Filter by File Extension)

This operator is intended to return only pages with a certain file type extension in their URLs, such as .docx or .xlsx. Syntax: ext:docx

Use case: seo ext:docx tries to fetch documents with the .docx extension related to SEO topics. Historically, both Bing and Google show mixed results with this operator, and sometimes Bing returns very few or irrelevant results.

filetype: (Results of a Single File Type)

This widely used operator returns pages for only a specific file type, like PDF or Excel files. Syntax: filetype:pdf

Example: seo audit filetype:pdf will find documents specifically in PDF format about SEO audits. This is reliable in both Bing and Google, and can be combined with site: to limit results to a single domain or subdomain.

inanchor: (Find Keywords in Anchor Text)

inanchor: is used to find pages with links pointing to them using your keyword as anchor text. For example, inanchor:seo should display pages that are linked to with the word “seo.” However, current feedback and tests show this operator provides unreliable, sometimes irrelevant results on Bing.

inbody: (Find Keywords in Body Text)

This operator focuses on the body content of indexed pages—very useful for researching references or mentions. inbody:seo would attempt to return pages where “seo” appears in the main body. Unfortunately, the effectiveness varies, with often inconsistent or sparse results.

intitle: (Target the Page Title Tag)

This operator will find pages that contain your keyword in the HTML title tag—a classic move for finding competitors, topic leaders, or targeted mentions.

Example: intitle:seo audit seeks results where “seo” and “audit” are both in the page title. This works well on Bing, and Google supports a similar approach.

instreamset: (Combine Several Properties in One Go)

instreamset: attempts to search across multiple page elements like the URL and title. Example:

instreamset:(url title):seo

While promising, Bing rarely returns consistently relevant results with this advanced operator. Google sometimes interprets it more consistently, though the phrase syntax differs.

ip: (Find Sites on an IP Address)

This search command shows all sites hosted (and indexed) on a specific IP address—excellent for SEO research and finding shared hosting neighbors. Running ip: 66.235.200.145 yields all indexed sites sharing that IP on Bing (not supported in Google). You can even combine with a keyword: ip: 66.235.200.145 seo

loc: or location: (Target Countries or Regions)

Find results specific to a country or region, using their two-letter codes. Example:

seo loc:us or seo location:us will find US-based results related to SEO. Bing supports many such codes for countries, regions, and languages.

language: (Search Results in a Specific Language)

Specify the language for returned pages.

Example: seo language:pl attempts to display Polish-language pages about “seo.” While generally successful, sometimes Bing still includes results in English or the default region language.

prefer: (Increase Importance of a Term)

Emphasizes certain keywords, potentially boosting their weight in the returned results. Example: seo prefer:organization highlights results about SEO with a focus on organizations. However, its performance in Bing varies, and sometimes Google gives better results with Bing-only operators.

site: (Restrict to a Domain or Subdomain)

A favorite for SEOs—only get results from the domain (and its subs) you specify. Example:

• site:seosly.com to see all indexed pages from SEOSLY
• olga site:seosly.com for pages mentioning “olga” on that same site

Can be used with OR to search multiple domains, or with directories, e.g., site:example.com/blog

feed: (Find RSS or Atom Feeds)

Searches for websites that provide feeds on your search topic. Example: feed:seo reveals sites offering RSS or Atom feeds about SEO. Supported only in Bing.

hasfeed: (Find Specific Feeds—Seldom Used)

Looks for pages within a site that have a feed corresponding to your term. Example: site:moz.com hasfeed:seo Unfortunately, this operator seems deprecated or inconsistently supported, and results are sometimes off-base in Bing and unsupported in Google.

url: (Check Indexing of Specific URLs)

Quickly check if a specific URL or domain is present in Bing’s index—useful for technical audits. Example: url:seosly.com checks the indexation of that domain. The key distinction from site: is that url: targets a specific address, while site: checks the entire domain tree.

info: (What Does the Search Engine Know About a Site?)

Returns aggregated info about a website—such as related pages, mentions, and external links. Example: info:moz.com Both Bing and Google provide variations of this operator, but Bing’s info: often returns a centralized info display with site details and mentions.

related: (Find Similar Pages or Sites)

Returns results of sites or pages Bing deems similar to your target. Example: related:moz.com Useful for competitive research, but not an officially supported Bing operator, so expect limitations.

define: (Get Definitions Instantly)

Type define: plus your word or phrase, and Bing or Google will attempt to offer a definition or dictionary result. Example: define:seo Handy for quick lookups and studying terminology rapidly.

domain: (Show Results Only from Target Domain)

A Bing-specific operator to restrict outcomes to just one domain (not supported in Google). For instance, domain:moz.com retrieves only results from moz.com in Bing. On Google, you’d use site: instead.

imagesize: (Image Search by Size)

Great for researchers and designers: search images within Bing by label—”small”, “medium”, or “large”—without needing exact pixel numbers.

• seo imagesize:small finds images with dimensions below 200 pixels;
• seo imagesize:medium for between 200 and 500 pixels; and
• seo imagesize:large for larger formats.

The Asterisk (*): Bing’s Wildcard Operator

The asterisk functions as a wildcard, representing any word or phrase within a query. For example, quickest * in the world will deliver results where any word(s) fit in place of the asterisk—useful for broad research or uncovering missing information.

Boolean Logic, Combining Multiple Operators, and Advanced Research Techniques

Once you’re comfortable with single operators, layering them lets you execute much more targeted research. Here are common scenarios and pro-tips:

• Combine site: + filetype:: To find all PDF downloads on a domain: site:domain.com filetype:pdf
• Use intitle: and -site: together:
  intitle:seo -site:yourdomain.com finds competitor pages with “seo” in the title but not on your site
• Mix ORs with parentheses:
  site:linkedin.com OR site:twitter.com to locate a person’s social profiles; this can also use brackets for better control: john doe (site:linkedin | site:twitter)
• Use NOT/- to exclude noisy results: If a term (“cats”) is polluted by pop culture, try cats -musical
• Find potential internal links:
  site:bruceclay.com/blog -site:bruceclay.com/seo/siloing/ intext:"siloing" uncovers blog pages mentioning “siloing” not including the main siloing page—a perfect internal linking audit trick

Bing’s flexibility means you can pilot highly complex queries with logic grouping, exclusions, and specialty operators.

Common Pitfalls, Gotchas, and the (Sometimes Iffy) Reliability of Bing Operators

While Bing search operators open a new world of possibilities, they’re not above criticism. Real-world testers, SEOs, and even Bing’s own forums have called out several recurring quirks:

• Some operators, like the minus sign (-) or NOT, aren’t 100% reliable. You might still see unwanted terms in your results, or operators may be ignored or behave inconsistently.
• Operators such as contains:, hasfeed:, and prefer: don’t always deliver accurate results, or they act differently than published documentation claims.
• Bing’s documentation itself can be outdated or incomplete. Some operators in help pages are deprecated or operate in unpredictable ways.
• Even when Bing lists an operator as supported, sometimes Google (surprisingly) returns more relevant results using the same—or similar—syntax!

If absolute reliability and repeatability of advanced searches is mission-critical for you, cross-verify occasionally with Google or seek third-party research tools for sensitive work.

Using Bing Search Operators for SEO, Technical Audits, and Content Research

Want to put these operators into immediate, practical use? Here are the most impactful ways power users and web professionals leverage Bing search operators:

1. Spotting Competitors and Analyzing Their Tactics

Use related:, site:, intitle:, and allinurl: (on Google) to discover what and how competitors are publishing. Example: related:microsoft.com or intitle:Bing Search Operators for direct rivals to this topic.

2. Diagnosing Indexing Issues and Technical SEO

Want to see how many pages Bing has indexed for your site, or whether specific folders are being crawled? Use

site:yourdomain.com

or

site:yourdomain.com/blog/*

for folders, and url:yourdomain.com/page to check individual pages.

3. Uncovering Linking and Anchor Text Opportunities

With inanchor:, intitle:, and inbody:, you can find where certain terms are used as anchor text (not always reliable in Bing), present in titles, or used in content—great for outreach, link building, or themed content research.

4. Internal Links and Silo Opportunities

Want more internal links for a keyword?

site:yourdomain.com -site:yourdomain.com/category/page intext:"target phrase"

yields a list of all other pages mentioning your term but not the target (so you can add links there).

5. Deep Research: PDFs, Data Files, Social Profiles

Want all PDFs about SEO from just Harvard’s site? Combine:

site:harvard.edu filetype:pdf seo

To find a person or organization across multiple social profiles, try combining site:linkedin.com and site:twitter.com with the person or company name.

Real-World Examples: Advanced Techniques in Action

Let’s see how these operators work together in live scenarios:

Example 1: Checking Your Website’s Indexation Health

Query: site:yourwebsite.com

This delivers the total pages Bing recognizes as indexed. Too low? There could be crawl issues. Too high? You might have duplicate/index bloat.

Example 2: Finding All PDFs Linked from a Blog Folder

Query: site:yourblog.com/blog contains:pdf

Sweeps your blog for every page that links to a PDF, useful for resource roundups or broken link checks.

Example 3: Discovering Potential Link Building or Outreach Targets

Query: intitle:guest post "seo" -site:yourdomain.com

Finds guest post opportunities about SEO, excluding your own site from results.