The Bing API Is Not Free

I did my research last night, in fact, I had the Bing API working and returning results in place of my Yahoo Boss implementation in about an hour. I didn't use any SDK (though I just saw a link this morning to one written for python), handled it by hand using the JSON protocol Bing offers.

First off, I will state. The Bing API was a snap to develop for, was very responsive, and from a developer standpoint I found it to be very enjoyable. However, I did more than just API syntax research, I poked all around the Bing developer site. Why? I wanted to know if it really was "free". I first started looking at Bing because I read that use of the API was completely free. Yahoo! Boss will be free up to a point, and then they start charging you for results. So if Bing really was free, then it would be a better option.

Bing started to look like an even better option, because it has more source types (verticals in Yahoo! Boss lingo), and you could pull mixed results from multiple ones at a time. Really interesting technology.

However, it is not free. The Terms of Use states in section 4:

We may also include advertising in Bing results provided through the services and, if we do so, you will not remove, modify, or interfere with the display or viewing of this advertising. On any page in which you display Bing results, you will only display advertising that we serve or provide.

So, if you have Bing results on a page, you can't put any advertising on that page unless they come from Microsoft. Now Microsoft is offering a shared revenue ad stream of the like that many of us were hoping Yahoo! would. However, Yahoo! has said you can do anything with their results, whereas Microsoft is saying "only our ads".

If you can limit yourself to using Bing with the same functionality that Yahoo! Boss offers, it might be an idea to start with Bing and Microsoft ads to try and bootstrap your app, then switch to Boss when you're ready to use your own advertising on the pages. Since talk is starting about Bing now, I thought it best to bring this to peoples attention. Fortunately, if you've started working on using Bing, you probably don't have a lot of time invested, because Microsoft did make a really nice API.

I'd like to see some examples of people using Bing with the Microsoft advertising platform. There really isn't a good solution that I've found for advertising on search result pages other than Chitika, if you can work with them to use your own search results to fire off their advertising.

I would imagine Microsoft probably would have higher quality ads, being Microsoft. The fact they may inject ads right into your results is a bit troubling though. I am interested to know if they are doing that currently.

Update: I've checked a site that currently using Bing and the Microsoft Ad Platform to checked the quality of advertisements. I found the quality of advertisers to be quite good. The token search for pizza, for example, served ads for Pizza Hutt and Dominos Pizza. I do not have information about the pay rate for the ad platform, and will leave that as an exercise for the business interested to pursue. I do feel that Bing is a good option for sites starting out, that currently don't have a method of delivering ads for their search result pages from a technical standpoint.