When searching, both Google & Bing(the latest search engine from Microsoft) allows some keywords or expressions to filter the results or control the way how search is done. These can be very useful for finding the best results. Following are some of the easiest and most useful search modifiers.

Naturally, this will also become a direct comparison of both search engines feature wise. So you may consider this as a “Bing Vs Google” comparison.

The following options are supported by both Bing and Google. But in some, for example currency conversion and unit conversion, Google is more advanced.

• Limiting search
• Calculator
• Currency conversion
• Unit conversion
• Weather
• Search for files

The following only applies to Google now. Bing may support these in the future.

• Find definitions
• Find local time
• Find movie information
• Specify a range of numbers
• Quick information about a site
• Cached copy of a site
• Related sites

Limiting search

site:domain <search term>

This will search only in the specified domain. The ’search term’ is optional. If omitted, this will bring all the indexed pages in that domain.

Eg: site:microsoft.com live writer will show results only from microsoft.com

inurl:part of url <search term>

This will show results from the pages which has a similar url.

Bing does not support this.

intitle

This will show results from the pages which has similar title

Bing does not support this.

Calculator

You can use google & bing as a calculator. Just type in the expression and search.

For eg: 13 * 12 + (1/2000)

Other supported operators

% of             percentage of      
^ or **         raise to a power
sqrt              square root of

Currency Conversion

You can use google and bing for currency conversion. The syntax can be any of the following.

<amount> <from_currency_code> to or in<to_currency_code>

Eg: 100 USD to INR, 100 USD in INR etc

<amount> <from_currency_name> to or in<to_currency_name>

Eg: 100 Us dollars to indian rupees

You can also mix currency code & currency name.

For eg: 100 INR in Us dollars

But what if you don’t know the currency code or currency name? Google supports another very useful syntax.

<amount> <country_name1> money in <country_name2> money

Eg: 100 british money in indian money

Note: Bing does not support this.

Unit conversion

If you want to convert one unit into another you can use Bing or Google.

Eg: 100 Kg in mg or mile in km etc

Number system conversions

google supports number system conversions but Bing doesn’t.
Prefix the following to number to convert from one number system to another.

No prefix means decimal (Eg: 100 in hex)
0b = binary ( Eg: 0b100 in decimal)
0x = hex (Eg: 0×100 in binary)
0o = octal (Eg: 0b100 in hex)

Weather

You can find out the weather forecast from both Google and Bing using the following query.

weather city_name

Eg: weather trivandrum

Searching for a specific file type

You can search for a specific file type by adding the following to the search term.

filetype:<extension>

eg: iphone manual filetype:pdf – It will only show links to matching pdfs.

Following are some Google only tricks. These do not work in Bing. Probably Microsoft will add these search options to Bing as well.

Find definitions

You can get the definitions for a word or phrase by the following.

define:<word> (If the ‘:’ is omitted it will show only one definition and then list the normal results. If clicked on that result you can see all the definitions).

Find local time

You can find the time of a city or country by the following query.

time <city name or country>

Eg: time new delhi, time india, time russia.

If a country has more than one time zone, it will list all.

Movie information

If you want quick information about a movie, use the following

movie: movie_name

Eg: movie: the ring

Specify a range of numbers (The .. operator)

This is useful if you want to search pages created in a specific period or a product with a specific price range.

Eg: mobile phones $500..$700

Information about a site

If you need a quick information about a site, you can try

info:<domain_name>

Eg: info:apple.com, info:cnet.com

Cached copy of a site

cache:<domain>

Eg: cache:cnet.com

Related Sites

If you want to bring out related sites – similar content or category you can try this.

related:domain

Eg: related:cnet.com

Bing Vs Google

It was not my intention to do a comparison when I started writing this post. But after finding a lot of Google only options I am forced to write the following.

Though Bing is a good alternative to Google, it is not a complete replacement. If you want more power over your search, still Google is the best. If you check the above search options, you might have already noted that, Google supports a lot of options that Bing does not support. But, Bing may evolve and will add more features under its hood – but until then, Google is the best choice for me.  For image and video search I might be tempted to use Bing.