Using a fast and accurate internal search experience can really enhance user engagement, conversions, and overall satisfaction with your site. Those who search your site already know what they’re looking for; therefore, they expect to see instant and relevant results from those searches.

For many years website owners and developers used Microsoft Bing-powered tools to build custom search solutions on their sites. As web development has progressed, so has the need for deeper levels of customization, AI influence in regard to the relevancy of results, and seamless integration into existing business strategies. In this article we will compare Expertrec Site Search vs. Bing Custom Search so that you can determine which solution is the better fit for your site.

What Is Bing Custom Search?

Bing Custom Search is a Microsoft product that helps developers create a customized search engine based on Bing’s search results (index) for their website, set of domains, or vertical (e.g., product, category).

Bing Custom Search is typically implemented via an application program interface (API) or hosted user interface (UI) and utilizes Bing’s ranking algorithms to display results.

Some key features of Bing Custom Search include

• The ability to search a selected set of websites or domains
• API-based implementation
• Hosted UI options
• Control over ranking rules and blocked results
• Integration with Azure services.

Bing’s search engine can crawl billions of web pages and deliver super-enhanced search results (with images, news articles, and videos); however, mainly Bing Custom Search was designed as a developer tool, not as a complete on-site solution.

Important Update: Availability Concerns

Microsoft has announced that many developers will lose access to Bing search APIs, including Bing custom search APIs, when they retire from use.

These Bing APIs will no longer be available for new deployments or for functionality in existing deployments, leaving many businesses that rely on Bing for their search infrastructure to wonder what changes Bing search will bring.

What Is Expertrec Site Search?

Expertrec is an internal-only search solution developed specifically for websites, eCommerce stores, SaaS applications, and content-heavy portals.

Rather than relying on 3rd-party web indexing, Expertrec spiders and indexes the web pages of your site directly in order to create a completely customizable search experience specific to your content and your users’ needs.

Some of the features available to Expertrec customers include:

• Plug-and-play implementation (no coding required)
• Advanced Customization capabilities (Deep UI customization)
• AI-based relevance tuning
• Autocomplete & Suggestions
• Filtering and Faceting Options
• Analytics and Insights
• Mobile-friendly solution

With Expertrec’s configuration capabilities, administrators have complete control over the appearance of the search output, can modify the rank order of search results, can define synonyms, and can modify the appearance of the Expertrec interface to reflect their branding.

AI-powered site search with instant autocomplete

Deliver lightning-fast search experiences with ExpertRec

ExpertRec helps you implement intelligent autocomplete, typo-tolerant search, personalized results, and scalable server-side search — all without complex infrastructure or heavy development effort.

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Quick setup • No coding required • Works on any website

Expertrec vs. Bing Custom Search: Feature Comparison

Ease of Setup

Bing Custom Search

• Requires Azure to be configured
• API keys and developer resources need to be obtained.
• Very limited customization of the UI
• Technical nature to implement

Expertrec

• Very easy to install (a few minutes)
• No programming skills required
• Available for all major CMS platforms
• Turnkey solution

Expertrec offers integrated solutions for WordPress, Shopify, Magento, etc.

➜ Expertrec wins in this category.

Relevance for Site Search

Bing Custom Search

• Uses the same criteria for determining webpage rankings as Bing uses
• Does not make any adjustments to the algorithm
• Very limited control over ranking logic

Expertrec

• Designed solely for internal search
• Learns from user interaction
• Supports synonyms, boosting, filtering
• Manual fine-tuning available

➜ Expertrec wins in this category.

Customization and Branding

Bing Custom Search

• Very little flexibility in UI
• Limited themes
• Generic appearance

Expertrec

• Complete control over search UI
• Matches brand design
• Overlay or dedicated results page
• Advanced CSS styling

➜ Expertrec wins in this category.

Features for Conversions

Bing Custom Search

• Basic query-response model
• Limited merchandising capabilities
• No built-in transaction tools

Expertrec

• Autocomplete with product suggestions
• Faceted filtering
• Related searches
• Personalization
• Search analytics

Winner: Expertrec

Cost Considerations

Bing Custom Search

• Usage-based pricing
• Traffic-dependent costs
• Additional fees for advanced features

Expertrec

• Predictable subscription pricing
• Scalable plans
• No surprise billing

Winner: Expertrec (for most businesses)

Future-Proofing

Bing Custom Search

• API retirement concerns
• Shift toward AI agents
• Uncertain availability

Expertrec

• Dedicated site search provider
• Continuous feature development
• Built for modern web needs

Winner: Expertrec

Final Verdict: Expertrec vs Bing Custom Search

Overall Winner: Expertrec

Are You Interested in Upgrading Your Site Search Experience?

If you want a site search solution that enhances your site by delighting your visitors while increasing your revenue without an extensive implementation effort then Expertrec is the clear choice.

👉 Give Expertrec a try now and see the change in the way people find content on your web site.