Live Search

Customize your 404 error pages with the Web Page Error Toolkit

2008-06-02T12:00:00Z

For large web sites with extensive amounts of content, 2 to 10 percent of traffic is looking for pages that either don’t exist or have been moved. Most web servers return a generic 404 error page or a sitemap when a user’s desired page cannot be found. These unhelpful pages often result in a dead end for users.

With Microsoft’s Web Page Error Toolkit, you can create dynamic 404 pages that contain customized error messages along with search results seeded with relevant keywords to help your users move past the missing page and find the information they need.

The Toolkit is a customizable ASP.net application that replaces the default error page on your IIS server. The Toolkit enables you to use Live Search (or any search engine) to return results for the specified domain and locale, control the number of results returned on your page, choose whether to offer spelling corrections, and customize your error message.

You also have the option of choosing from several keyword extraction strategies that are included with the install, or providing your own implementation.

Get the Toolkit

To install the Toolkit, click WebPageErrorToolkitSetup.msi.

Before you install, review the API terms of service at Windows Live Platform and Services - Terms of Service.

VB Samples now available in the Interactive SDK!

2008-04-18T20:54:00Z

The Live Search Interactive SDK now includes code samples for VB.net, in addition to C# and SOAP. The Interactive SDK provides a quick look at the Live Search APIs in action.

To use the Interactive SDK, go to http://dev.live.com/livesearch/sdk/ and get started.

Flash code samples now available

2008-03-31T17:18:00Z

Flash code samples for the Live Search API are now available. For more information or to download the sample, see Flash code samples.

Updated Live Search SDK now available

2008-03-21T15:32:00Z

The Live Search team has released an updated SDK for the Live Search API version 1.1b. You can read the SDK on MSDN or download a copy to your machine.

The Live Search SDK provides documentation that describes the core concepts, requirements, development guidelines, and class library for the Live Search Web Service. The SDK also contains sample code that demonstrates application development techniques using the Live Search Web Service.

Getting Started with the Live Search Web Service API

2008-03-21T15:31:00Z

The Live Search Web Service enables you to create applications that return results from the Live Search Engine. Applications are developed in any Microsoft .NET language for Windows or the Web.

Follow these steps to get started with the Live Search Web Service:

Read the SDK on MSDN or download the SDK to your machine. The SDK documentation describes the core concepts, requirements, development guidelines, and class library for the Live Search Web Service. The SDK also contains sample code that demonstrates application development techniques using the Live Search Web Service.
In your Visual Studio project, add a Web Reference to the Live Search Web Service WSDL at http://soap.search.live.com/webservices.asmx?wsdl.
Point your browser to http://search.live.com/developer and click Create and Manage Application IDs.
Sign in with your Windows Live ID. If you don’t have a Windows Live ID account, you can create one at the site.
In the Application Name text box on the Get an App ID page, type a friendly name for your application.
Click I Accept to indicate that you have read and accepted the Terms of Use. The Developer Provisioning System creates and registers a unique Application ID for your application. Copy the Application ID and paste it into your source code as the value for the AppID. For example, in Visual C#®, you would add the following code to your SearchRequest:

searchRequest.AppID = "185A8FADA7931D06D119C2FC1FF104";

Replace 185A8FADA7931D06D119C2FC1FF104 with your unique Application ID supplied by the Developer Provisioning System.
Build and test your application.

Your use of the Live Search Web Service is limited by the Terms of Use specified in the Developer Provisioning System when you request an Application ID. Ensure that your application complies with the terms of this agreement before you retrieve results from the Live Search Engine.

New code samples are available for the Live Search Web Service

2008-03-21T15:30:00Z

The Live Search team has released new, downloadable code samples for calling the Live Search Web Service from a variety of applications, including:

For more information, see Downloadable Code Samples in the Live Search SDK on MSDN.

Building Search for Your Web Site with the Live Search Service

2006-08-20T03:00:00Z

Take a look behind the scenes at how we built the site search for dev.live.com using the MSN Search Service. This article by Koji Kato describes the steps for implementing MSN Search on your own Web site with code and instructions. A downloadable ZIP file containing the full sample code for this implementation is also available....(read more)