Use search operators to refine your Bing AI search results

Microsoft has spent a lot of time and resources developing a new and improved AI version of Bing. Presumably, the plan is to make Bing more useful and relevant compared to the established competition. Only time will tell if this gamble will be successful.

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In the meantime, Windows 11 users will benefit from quick access to the new AI-enabled Bing right from their default desktop search box on the taskbar. To get the best search results, users should take advantage of built-in search operators.

These 10 common search operators help you refine your search inputs, which in turn refine your search results, save time and energy, and increase your productivity.

Use search operators to refine your Bing AI search results

To work correctly, Bing search operators have a specific syntax that must be followed. The search operator is always followed by a colon, which is immediately followed by a parameter. There are no spaces before or after the colon, as shown here:

operator:parameter

This convention takes some getting used to, but should be followed every time. Capitalization is not important.

TO SEE: Use Google? Try these tips to get better Google search results.

Note: There are more search operators available, but these 10 are probably the most useful.

place:

Adding the site: operator to a search restricts that search to a specific website. For example, windows 11 site:techrepublic.com find only Windows 11 related articles on TechRepublic. The site: operator only shows results for two levels of subdomains.

domain:

The domain operator: restricts a search to an entire domain, including all indexed subdomains.

contains:

The contains operator: restricts search results to pages with links to specific file types. For example, to find links to .pdf files, use the operator contains:pdf.

file type:

To search for results with a specific file type, use the filetype: operator. Note the subtle difference between contains: (find links to PDFs) and file type: (find PDFs).

to define:

If you just want the definition of a word or phrase, add the define: operator (Image A). For example, define:artificial intelligence.

Image A

image size:

The imagesize operator: Searches Bing Images for images related to your query, limited to your specified size. The size parameter can be small (less than 200 pixels), medium (200 to 500 pixels), or large (greater than 500 pixels).

anchor:

The inanchor operator: Limits your results to only web pages that contain your keyword or phrase in the anchor text, such as titles, subtitles, and headlines.

in body:

Use the inbody: operator to limit the word or phrase of your search to the body of each indexed website.

intitle:

The intitle operator: restricts the results to a queried word or phrase that appears in the title of a web page.

place:

The location: operator restricts a search to a specific location. For example, birds location:us will limit results to websites that identify themselves as residing in the United States.

Better searches yield better results

For general web surfing, these Bing search operators may seem like extra work for little profit, but for serious searches performed as part of your tasks and under time pressure, they can save significant amounts of time and effort.

Better search results, the kind of results you can actually use, require better queries, and these search operators can be the key to getting the results you want.

Read more: See how Microsoft can turn Bing Chat into your personal AI assistant.