Microsoft retired Bing Search APIs on August 11, 2025. Choose an alternative by the output your feature needs: raw search results, a generated answer with citations, or selected-page content. These are different acceptance requirements. A provider that supplies one should not be assumed to expose the others.
Choose the output before choosing a supplier
| Feature to preserve | Required output | Do not substitute |
|---|---|---|
| Rank or result analysis | Search-result URLs, observation order and explicit market/depth | A generated answer in place of an observable result set |
| An agent answer | An answer and inspectable citations under the chosen grounding contract | A title/snippet list treated as a supported final answer |
| RAG source context | Selected source content plus URL, access time and content checks | Search snippets treated as the full source |
| A legacy v7 application | A decision about its required output, followed by a separate dependency audit | A new key assumed to preserve the retired endpoint |
Write an output acceptance record before a vendor trial
Use a fixed set of feature requirements rather than an unverified list of best providers. This decision record is a proposed application checklist, not a provider benchmark. For each candidate, record the current documentation URL and the observed response from an authorized trial.
| Record field | Question to settle |
|---|---|
| Output class | Must the application receive raw results, an answer, or source text? |
| Required fields | Which exact URL, position, citation or content fields must be exposed? |
| Market and depth | Which country/language and checked result range must be observable? |
| Optional features | Are news, images, ads or other features documented for that request type? |
| Failure disposition | Can the feature show an empty/missing output, or must it stop? |
| Usable-output cost | What is billed, what expires, and which additional reading step is needed? |
Keep selection, migration and implementation as separate jobs
This page owns the replacement-path decision. Auditing legacy v7 endpoints and rebuilding an adapter is migration work; constructing a Python request and parser is implementation work. Finish the selection record first, then use the guide for the specific next task.
For the direct-data path, SearchCans documents POST /api/v1/search with t: bing. Its organic list is data.organic and result URLs use link. This third-party contract is evidence for a candidate output class, not a claim that Microsoft’s former response shape is preserved. Reading a selected page is a separate Reader operation.
Reject a candidate when its exposed output misses the task
Retirement explains why a replacement decision is necessary. It does not establish a performance winner, a fixed saving, or compatibility with every legacy feature. Keep unresolved requirements visible instead of replacing missing documentation with a vendor-ranking claim.
- Raw-result access is required, but only an answer is exposed.
- The trial does not expose a required field or requested market.
- Selected-page content is needed, but only search snippets are available.
- A quoted price omits a required reading step, expiry or the usable-output denominator.
Reference documentation: learn.microsoft.com — /en-us/lifecycle/announcements/bing-search-api-retirement; www.searchcans.com — /bing-search-api.
