Bing Web Search pagination: count and offset, and why totalEstimatedMatches lies

TL;DR: Use count for the page size and offset for the starting position, and offset is zero-based. What the docs say: Official docs (Microsoft Learn, paging Bing Web Search results): how pagination really works. To page through results, increase offset by the page size each request. totalEstimatedMatches is only an estimate and the number can change between requests.

Fix

1. Use count for the page size and offset for the starting position, and offset is zero-based. Expected: this specific failure stops.

2. To page through results, increase offset by the page size each request. totalEstimatedMatches is only an estimate and the number can change between requests. Expected: this specific failure stops.

3. What works: To page through Bing Web Search results: set count to your page size and start offset at 0, then add the page size to offset on each next request. Expected: this specific failure stops.

4. Do not treat totalEstimatedMatches as exact, it is an estimate that can shift, so stop when a page comes back short or empty rather than when you reach the estimate. Expected: this specific failure stops.

Details

What the docs say: Official docs (Microsoft Learn, paging Bing Web Search results): how pagination really works. Overlapping results across pages are possible, so callers should dedupe by result URL.

When to use

You hit exactly this: Bing Web Search pagination: count and offset, and why totalEstimatedMatches lies in Bing Web Search pagination.

When not to use

A different error, or the same symptom in a different tool. This page only covers the failure above.

Compatibility

Bing Web Search pagination.

Root cause

Dedupe results by URL because pages can overlap.

The official docs describe: Bing Web Search pagination: count and offset, and why totalEstimatedMatches lies. What the docs say to do: To page through Bing Web Search results: set count to your page size and start offset at 0, then add the page size to offset on each next request. Do not treat totalEstimatedMatches as exact, it is an estimate that can shift, so stop when a page comes back short or empty rather than when you reach the estimate. Dedupe results by URL because pages can overlap. Source: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/bing/search-apis/bing-web-search/page-results