Bing Help Home > Bing Table of Contents >

Get search suggestions

Search suggestions help you get the results you want faster.

Why Bing search suggestions are different

You not only get suggestions based on terms that other people are looking for, you can get suggestions based on your past searches. These history suggestions help you quickly get back to search results and websites you've visited before.

Use search suggestions

As you start typing, the search suggestions pane will open automatically and start to show you suggestions based on what you've entered.

  • Suggestions based on popular search terms are in blue.

  • Suggestions based on your search history are in purple.

Use your keyboard arrows to scroll through the list, pressing ENTER to choose a suggestion. Or use your mouse to point and click.

Choosing one of the blue or purple links takes you to search results for that suggestion.

You're always in control

You can turn off search suggestions at any time. On the Preferences page under Search suggestions, uncheck Turn suggestions on. This turns search suggestions off until you choose to turn them back on, or until you clear your cookies.

Turn search suggestions back on

On the Preferences page under Search suggestions, check Turn suggestions on.

You can also control whether history suggestions appear in your regular search suggestions. Just click History off in the search suggestions drop-down. And to review and manage all of your search history, click Manage history.

How we protect your privacy

Search suggestions on Bing sends your keystrokes to a server that then suggests popular search terms, as well as suggestions of sites you've already visited based on what you've typed. This happens with suggestions-style features on many search engines.

We also send some usage information to a server, such as the number of keystrokes entered, as well as the number and types of suggestions shown. This information will help us improve search suggestions in the future.

For more information about how Microsoft protects your privacy online, see the Bing Privacy Supplement to the Microsoft Online Privacy Statement.

Note  Some features and functionality described here may not be available in your country or region.