Quickstart: Call your Bing Custom Search endpoint using Python

Use this quickstart to learn how to request search results from your Bing Custom Search instance. Although this application is written in Python, the Bing Custom Search API is a RESTful web service compatible with most programming languages. The source code for this sample is available on GitHub.

Prerequisites

• A Bing Custom Search instance. For more information, see Quickstart: Create your first Bing Custom Search instance.
• Python 2.x or 3.x.

Create and initialize the application

• Create a new Python file in your favorite IDE or editor, and add the following import statements. Create variables for your subscription key, custom configuration ID, and search term.

  import json
  import requests
  
  subscriptionKey = "YOUR-SUBSCRIPTION-KEY"
  customConfigId = "YOUR-CUSTOM-CONFIG-ID"
  searchTerm = "microsoft"
  

Send and receive a search request

1. Construct the request URL by appending your search term to the q= query parameter, and your search instance's custom configuration ID to the customconfig= parameter. Separate the parameters with an ampersand (&).

   url = 'https://api.bing.microsoft.com/v7.0/custom/search?' + 'q=' + searchTerm + '&' + 'customconfig=' + customConfigId
   

2. Send the request to your Bing Custom Search instance, and print the returned search results.

   r = requests.get(url, headers={'Ocp-Apim-Subscription-Key': subscriptionKey})
   print(r.text)
   

Next steps

Build a Custom Search web app