When it comes to web search, Windows Live stands a distant third behind Google and Yahoo!.
There are however are some lesser-known features in Live Search that aren’t just useful, you won’t find them in any of the other popular search engines. Let’s take a look:
1. Watch Video Preview in Search Results
When you hover the mouse over any of the thumbnail images appearing in Live Video Search, it will automatically play a short preview of the video so you have a good idea about the clip without visiting the target website where that video is hosted.
As you may have noticed in the screencast above, this video preview feature is available for all clip indexed by Live Search whether they are on YouTube, MySpace, CNN or ABC News.
2. Find Web Pages That Link to Documents, MP3s, Videos, ZIPs ..
The contains: operator is Live Search lets you find web pages that link to other online documents and multimedia files like music and video. This is very different from Google’s filetype: search operator (also available in Live Search) which looks for content inside PDF and Office documents.
For example, if you are looking to download a Microsoft Word report from Gartner site that is about elearning, just type: "elearning site:gartner.com contains:doc"
Similarly, if you like to find all pages on Wikipedia that link to MP3 files, type "site:wikipedia.org contains:mp3"
Another example - to learn about software that you can download from the Google website, use "site:google.com contains:zip OR contains:exe"
3. Save Images & Pictures As Your Search the Web
Live Image Search includes something called a scratch pad that lets you save collection of images with a simple drag-n-drop. This comes very handy if you are searching for images using different keywords and need to shortlist only a few from that large collection.
4. Get Live Search Results as RSS Feeds
While there are external services that let you subscribe to search results via RSS feeds, neither Yahoo! nor Google provide RSS feeds of their search results.
You can however subscribe to search pages from Windows Live as RSS feed via this undocumented hack. Open Live Search, type your query and then on the results page, appened "&format=rss" to the URL. See example:
Search Page: http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=iphone
RSS Feed: http://search.live.com/results.aspx?q=iphone&format=rss
This parameter converts the Live Search page into an RSS feed that you can add to your news reader. Thanks Abhishek.
5. Limit Your Search to Website that offer RSS Feeds
Another interesting search operator in Live Search is "hasfeed" - it lets you find only those web pages that link to RSS feeds. For instance, you could say "micheal phelps hasfeed:" to find web pages that are about "michael phelps" and also syndicate content as RSS feeds.
You can group hasfeed: with other search operators so if want to know about all pages related to movies on ABC website that have feeds, just type "movies site:abc.com hasfeed:"
6. Specify Weight (Preference) in the Search Query
Say you are planning for an upcoming vacation and need some advice related to holiday destinations. Now rather than searching for "holiday destinations" that will return very broad results, you could add the prefer: operator and specify places that you’re really keen to visit though you don’t mind other suggestions.
For e.g., says "holiday destinations prefer:japan"
Also see:Things That Yahoo! Can Do But Not Google
Find this article at: http://www.labnol.org/internet/search/windows-live-search-tricks-hacks/4337/
web: http://www.labnol.org/ email: amit@labnol.org
Reader Comments
Excellent Guide on Windows Live Search Tricks but i generally dont find any relevant results in Live.com search, may be google is something we are addicted to!
Written by Amit Bhawani on 08.29.08
Good tips, though I wonder who uses Live Search any more. Stumbled.
Written by Sumesh on 08.29.08
There is no visible space for the advertisers at the top of the blog. How will you adjust that space and Where will you place third party advertisements in this new template? If no, you have to write long posts so that the ads come in the sight of readers.
Thanks for the “Site We Like” section, that gave me good idea.
Written by Hariharakumar on 08.29.08
Cool, if only they’d add some of those to Google. I might use MS Live search if I really need those features, but chances are I’ll just stick with Google and live without those features until Google adds them.
Written by Blake on 08.29.08
i did`n know that live image search can just save collection of images with a simple drag-n-drop.will try it now..
Written by risingthinker on 08.29.08
Well, even though Live search boasts of all these EXTRA features, the average user doesn’t find any practical use of it if it fails in its basic i.e providing accurate search results.This is the one area where Google leads and thus this is what counts.
Written by VishTecho on 08.30.08
I like the live search quite a bit and use it as my number 1 search service. I find people who complain about the results are generally those who enter inadequate search terms.
Written by James Blake on 08.30.08
I have been following your writes. But of late I have noted that real content is missing. Bring the fire back, my dear.
Written by Neeta on 08.31.08
Live search engine works like an old generation search engine.Hence,these tips seem hardly of any use to me or majority of others(Google rocks!).But still,nice digging on Live
Written by Prashant on 08.31.08
Great list Amit! The “doc contain” and “feed contain” operator is new and will be very useful to a lot of people including me. BTW, you can get Google Search results into feeds by using the feedmysearch.com service.
Written by Search1x on 08.31.08
Great tips. Thanks for sharing. Yahoo does have a similarly obscure hack to do an RSS feed from a search. I can’t recall who told me about this, but the I’ve included the info in a blog post (august 30, 2008) at: blog dot pafa dot net
Written by pollyalida on 08.31.08
thanks for the tips and tricks… the image and video search for Live are outstanding!
the one other thing that have started to love is the Live CashBack program (http://search.live.com/cashback).. in this program one gets back cash on online shopping..
while this is not yet available in India, i do have a relative in US that i have been shipping all my purchases to.. and i have been able to save 10-15% via this route…
that’s my reason to go live..
Written by abhishek kant on 09.01.08
Google *does* allow you to save searches as RSS. It’s a bit cumbersome, in that you have to go to news, run your search, click on RSS and then choose the type of search you want to save.
Written by Phil Bradley on 09.01.08
Awesome. Live Search really is better than Google Search. For me, Live Search usually nails down most of my search queries. I think part of the reason why Live Search might be weak in some areas of accuracy is because there’s not enough people searching and picking the right links, for the bots to do their job.
Some people just can’t admit Live Search is better in areas.
Written by Quikboy on 09.05.08
I began getting hits from Live Search a few days ago. They are thieves. To let readers copy images and see vids without visiting the websites….hmmm…who does that hurt?
Every. Single. Creator.
Microsoft is enjoying copyright infringement. Class action, anyone?
Written by Donna Barstow on 09.17.08
@ link : You really are an amazingly stupid person. If you don’t want your stuff indexed, then block their spider. And you’re already getting hits as a result, so you’re getting MORE traffic, not less. Get a life and learn how the net works.
Written by Cathy Romine on 09.17.08