Bing Search Operators List for SEO & Website Research
Most people type a keyword into Bing, hit enter, and scroll. That works fine until you need something specific — a PDF buried on a client’s site, every page on a domain that Bing has actually indexed, or a competitor’s guest post footprint. That’s where search operators come in.
Bing search operators are short commands you add to a query to control exactly what comes back. Some only work on Bing. A few work on Google too. This guide covers every operator that still works in 2026, what each one is actually good for, and where Bing quietly ignores its own documentation.
What a search operator actually does
A search operator is a symbol or word placed before (or around) your keyword that changes how Bing reads the query. Instead of “find pages roughly about this topic,” you’re telling Bing “find pages that match this exact condition.” Think of it as a filter you apply before the results even load, rather than something you dig through afterward.
How to use them
- Type the operator directly into the Bing search box — no space after the colon for operators like site: or filetype:.
- Add your keyword right after it.
- Press enter.
That’s it. No special settings, no advanced search page required (though Bing does have one — more on that below).
The basic operators (work on Bing and mostly on Google too)
These are the building blocks. You’ll use these far more often than the advanced ones below.
| Operator | Example | What it does |
| ” ” (quotes) | “content audit checklist” | Matches the exact phrase, word for word |
| + | seo +audit | Forces inclusion of a term, including stop words Bing normally ignores |
| – | seo -audit | Excludes a term from results |
| AND or & | “seo audit” AND “content audit” | Requires both terms (this is the default anyway) |
| OR or | | seo OR ppc | Matches either term |
| NOT | seo NOT technical | Same job as the minus sign, written out |
| ( ) | seo (technical OR local) | Groups terms so Bing evaluates them together |
A few things worth knowing before you start stacking these:
- Bing (like Google) treats every search as an AND search by default, so you don’t need to type AND unless you’re mixing it with other operators.
- NOT and OR must be written in capital letters. Lowercase and Bing just treats them as regular words.
- Punctuation and common words (“the,” “a,” “of”) get dropped from a search unless you wrap them in quotes or put a + in front of them.
- If you’re combining several of these in one query, the order Bing reads them in is: ( ), then ” “, then NOT/-, then +, then AND/&, then OR/|. Put OR groups in parentheses if you’re mixing them with anything else, or the results get messy.
The advanced operators
This is where Bing and Google start to diverge. A handful of these are Bing-specific and won’t return anything useful on Google. Others are technically Bing operators but, in practice, behave better on Google’s index. I’ve noted both.
1. site:
Restricts results to one domain (and its subdomains).
site:yourwebsite.com
This is the one SEOs reach for constantly — mainly to check how many pages of a site Bing has actually indexed, or to spot indexing problems fast. Add a keyword after it (seo site:yourwebsite.com) to search within that domain only. Works on both Bing and Google.
Check out our Technical SEO Services to fix indexing, crawling, and other technical issues that may be affecting your website’s rankings.
2. filetype:
Finds documents of a specific format.
site:yourwebsite.com filetype:pdf
Useful for tracking down PDFs, spreadsheets, or slide decks sitting in a site’s upload folders. Works with pdf, doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, txt, and html. Functions correctly on both engines.
3. intitle:
Limits results to pages with a given word in the page title.
intitle:seo audit
Since the words aren’t in quotes, they can appear anywhere in the title, not necessarily next to each other. This one behaves as expected on Bing.
4. inbody:
Matches a term that appears in the visible body content of the page.
inbody:seo
This is listed in Bing’s own documentation, but the results in practice tend to be looser than you’d expect — Bing throws in a fair number of only loosely related pages. Google, interestingly, handles the same logic more precisely even though it dropped the equivalent operator years ago from its official list.
5. contains:
Searches for pages that link out to a specific file type.
seo contains:pdf
Supposed to surface pages linking to PDF resources. In testing, Bing’s results here are inconsistent — you’ll often get pages with no PDF link in sight. Google tends to do a better job with the same query structure.
6. ip:
Shows indexed websites hosted on a given IP address.
ip:66.235.200.145
Handy for checking what else is sitting on shared hosting, which can matter for spam-network research or migration audits. Bing-only — Google has no equivalent.
7. loc: / location:
Filters results to a country or region.
seo loc:us
Bing supports two-letter country codes here. Relevance is hit-or-miss depending on the query, but it’s still one of the few free ways to get a rough sense of regional indexing. Google has retired the equivalent operator.
8. language:
Restricts results to a specific language, using a language code.
seo language:pl
Mostly does what it says, though you’ll still see a stray English result creep in (usually a knowledge panel). Bing-only.
9. url:
Checks whether a specific URL is in Bing’s index at all.
url:yourwebsite.com
Different from site: — url: checks one exact address, while site: pulls every indexed page under that domain. Good for a quick index-status check on a single page. Doesn’t return anything meaningful on Google.
10. info:
Pulls together what Bing (or Google) knows about a site — related pages, mentions, and similar sources.
info:example.com
Works on both engines and gives a quick snapshot when you’re sizing up an unfamiliar domain.
11. related:
Surfaces sites similar to the one you enter.
related:example.com
Not an official Bing operator, but it’s genuinely useful for quick competitor discovery. It performs noticeably better on Google than on Bing.
12. define:
Pulls up a definition for the term you search.
define:seo
Works cleanly on both search engines.
13. domain:
Shows results only from the domain specified — Bing’s own version of a domain filter.
domain:example.com
Bing-only. On Google, you’d just use site: instead.
14. feed: / hasfeed:
feed: finds sites with an RSS or Atom feed matching your keyword. hasfeed: narrows that down to a specific domain: site:example.com hasfeed:seo.
Both are Bing-only, and hasfeed: in particular seems to have been quietly phased out — don’t be surprised if it returns very little.
15. instreamset:
Searches multiple page properties (title, URL, body) at once.
instreamset:(title url):seo
Documented on Bing’s side, but results tend to be thin. Google handles the equivalent logic more reliably.
16. imagesize:
Filters Bing Image results by size — small, medium, or large.
seo imagesize:medium
Works well on both Bing and Google, though Google requires exact pixel dimensions rather than a size label.
17. The asterisk (*)
Acts as a wildcard, standing in for a missing word or phrase.
quickest * in the world
Reliable on both engines and genuinely useful when you’re trying to recall a phrase you only half remember.
Bing vs. Google: how the same operators actually behave
Here’s the part most guides skip. Several operators that Bing documents on its own help pages simply underperform when you test them — while the same syntax, aimed at Google, returns tighter results. inanchor:, inbody:, contains:, instreamset:, and prefer: all fall into this bucket. That doesn’t mean they’re broken; it just means Bing’s index handles these filters more loosely than Google’s does. If precision matters more than which engine you’re loyal to, it’s worth running the same query both places before you trust the output.
Operators that genuinely need Bing — because Google has no equivalent — include ip:, loc:, language:, url:, domain:, feed:, and hasfeed:. These are worth keeping in your toolkit specifically because there’s no Google substitute.
Practical ways to actually use this
- Site audits: site:yourdomain.com paired with -inurl:blog to see what’s indexed outside your blog folder.
- Competitor research: related:competitor.com for a quick list of similar sites, then site:competitor.com filetype:pdf to see what gated or downloadable content they’ve published.
- Content theft checks: wrap a distinctive sentence from your own page in quotes and search it — copies tend to surface fast.
- Outreach and link building: intitle:”write for us” seo or “guest post” intext:marketing to find sites accepting contributor content.
- Shared hosting investigation: ip: combined with a keyword, to see what other sites live on the same server as a domain you’re evaluating.
FAQs
Do Bing search operators work the same way in Google?
Some do, some don’t. Boolean basics like quotes, -, OR, and AND behave almost identically across both engines. Bing-specific commands such as ip:, loc:, language:, and domain: have no Google equivalent at all.
Why do some Bing operators return irrelevant results even though Bing documents them?
Bing’s own advanced search page lists more operators than it seems to fully support in practice. Commands like inbody:, inanchor:, and instreamset: are real and documented, but the matching behind them appears looser than advertised, so expect some noise in the results.
What’s the single most useful Bing operator for SEO work?
site: — by a wide margin. It’s the fastest way to see what a domain has indexed, spot duplicate or thin pages, and catch indexing issues before they become traffic problems.
Can I combine multiple Bing operators in one search?
Yes. site:example.com filetype:pdf seo is a normal, valid query — you’re just stacking filters. Just remember the precedence order (parentheses first, quotes next, then NOT/minus, plus, AND, and OR last) if you’re mixing several types together.
Is there an official Bing advanced search page?
Yes, Microsoft maintains a help page listing its advanced search keywords, though several users (and this guide) have found it’s missing a few community-documented operators and hasn’t been fully updated to match current behavior.
