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The query "moscow is a beautiful city" does not return any results containing the exact search phrase (compare to Google's response). Is it a bug in Bing and are there any workarounds?

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I just checked and it works. – Mehper C. Palavuzlar Sep 15 '11 at 10:47
Please look at the screenshots: bing vs google. All results on the first page from google contain the exact search phrase. No results on the first page from Bing do that. Note also the number of hits: 7.2M (bing) vs 37k (google). – Denis Golomazov Sep 16 '11 at 5:59

3 Answers

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This is what I do:

The only way that the Bing API returns the same results for an exact phrase is to put another double quotes in the query (in REST invokes it seems that is not needed to escape the quotes). I tried first this URL:

https://api.datamarket.azure.com/Bing/Search/Web?Query=%27google%20api%20news%27&$format=json&$top=3

The results were diferent. Next I tried this other:

https://api.datamarket.azure.com/Bing/Search/Web?Query=%27%22google%20api%20news%22%27&$format=json&$top=3

With the second one the results were the same as that in the Bing web search with "google api news" phrase.

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2  
Links that need a username and password do not offer help. Please post screenshots or just the actual search queries that anyone could type into the services to see result set. – Bradley A. Tetreault Oct 7 '12 at 20:40
up vote 2 down vote accepted

The problem is in the market parameter.

See the Bing API 2.0 documentation:

The market parameter is optional. If the parameter is not specified, the API will attempts to determine an applicable market through the use of logic such as the IP address of the request, cookies. and other elements.

Compare two results for the same query using different market option values: en-US vs ru-RU. Each result on the first page of the answer for the en-US market contains the exact query string, while for ru-RU no result does.

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up vote 1 down vote

Quotations do search by exact phrase. See the Bing documentation Search effectively that states:

Search for exact phrases by placing the search words within quotation marks. For example, "short evergreen tree."

Check that you don't have unusual settings or filters in your Bing settings.

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I see, they search, but seem not to return any results containing the exact phrase. Please look at the screenshots in the comment above. I checked the settings and found no unusual ones. – Denis Golomazov Sep 16 '11 at 6:02
1  
Have you tried the "Advanced" link in the search results? (I doubt that will change anything, but you can try.) What country are you in, and language settings? In US-en it is returning results for me that match the exact phrase you used. The next step may be speaking with bing support directly? – Mufasa Sep 16 '11 at 14:22
Mufasa, thank you for the response. I sorted it out and posted the answer. Language settings are the key. – Denis Golomazov Sep 21 '11 at 12:46

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