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

TL;DR

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.

Fix

1. 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: You get the expected result; the problem is gone.

When to use

• You are setting up or using this Bing Web Search pagination feature.
• The symptom matches: count and offset, and why totalEstimatedMatches lies.

When NOT to use

• Unrelated Bing Web Search pagination issues (different feature, different failure).
• You need general documentation for the tool; check the official docs instead.

Compatibility

Reported against Bing Web Search pagination.

Variant phrasings

count and offset, and why totalEstimatedMatches lies

Why it happens

Official docs (Microsoft Learn, paging Bing Web Search results): how pagination really works. Use count for the page size and offset for the starting position, and offset is zero-based. To page through results, increase offset by the page size each request. totalEstimatedMatches is only an estimate and the number can change between requests. Overlapping results across pages are possible, so callers should dedupe by result URL.

Edge cases

• If your error message differs even slightly, this is probably a different issue; search the exact text.
• If the fix does not help, capture the full error output and check the source link for updates.