If the query is for a fact such as a date or identifiable knowledge, the response can contain facts answers. Fact answers contain relevant results extracted from paragraphs in web documents. These queries always return webpages, and facts and/or entities are query-dependent.
Queries such as valentines+2016, when+is+ramadan are considered date-related queries. If Bing determines that the query is date-related, the response contains a facts answer.
The following example is a date-related facts answer.
Query:
https://labsportalppe.azure-api.net/answerSearch/v7.0/search?q=valentines+2016
Response:
The subjectName field contains a display version of the user's query that you can use as a label when displaying the fact. If the query string is valentines+2016, Bing may change it Valentine's Day 2016. The description field contains the fact.
{
"_type" : "SearchResponse",
"queryContext" : {
"originalQuery" : "valentines 2016"
},
"facts" : {
"id" : "https:\/\/www.bingapis.com\/api\/v7\/#Facts",
"value" : [{
"description" : "Valentine's Day was on Sunday, February 14, 2016.",
"subjectName" : "Valentine's Day 2016"
}]
},
"rankingResponse" : {
"mainline" : {
"items" : [{
"answerType" : "Facts",
"value" : {
"id" : "https:\/\/www.bingapis.com\/api\/v7\/knowledge\/#Facts"
}
}]
}
}
}
The query "Why is the sky blue?" returns an example of a knowledge-related answer.
Query:
https://api.labs.cognitive.microsoft.com/answerSearch/v7.0/search?q=why+is+the+sky+blue
Response:
The value/description field contains the knowledge or information requested by the query.
"facts": {
"id": "https://www.bingapis.com/api/v7/#Facts",
"contractualRules": [
{
"_type": "ContractualRules/LinkAttribution",
"text": "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffuse_sky_radiation",
"url": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffuse_sky_radiation"
},
{
"_type": "ContractualRules/LinkAttribution",
"text": "spaceplace.nasa.gov/blue-sky/en/",
"url": "https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/blue-sky/en/"
}
],
"attributions": [
{
"providerDisplayName": "en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffuse_sky_radiation",
"seeMoreUrl": "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffuse_sky_radiation"
},
{
"providerDisplayName": "spaceplace.nasa.gov/blue-sky/en/",
"seeMoreUrl": "https://spaceplace.nasa.gov/blue-sky/en/"
}
],
"value": [
{
"image": {
"webSearchUrl": "https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailv2&FORM=OIIRPO&q=&id=B632272C4E934D7F0B18790300B2DE34E7676C7A&simid=608045681196075791&iss=eqna",
"name": "Why is the sky blue in the sky?",
"thumbnailUrl": "https://www.bing.com/th?id=ODE.858093005&w=140&h=140&c=8&rs=1&qlt=100&pid=3.1",
"isFamilyFriendly": true
},
"description": "When sunlight reaches Earth's atmosphere, it is scattered in all directions by all the gases and particles in the air. Blue is scattered by air molecules more than other colors because it travels as shorter, smaller waves. This is why we see a blue sky most of the time.\n\nCloser to the horizon, the sky fades to a lighter blue or white. The sunlight reaching us from low in the sky has passed through even more air than the sunlight reaching us from overhead. As the sunlight has passed through all this air, the air molecules have scattered and rescattered the blue light many times in many directions. Also, the surface of Earth has reflected and scattered the light. All this scattering mixes the colors together again so we see more white and less blue.",
"subjectName": "Why is the sky blue in the sky?",
"primaryData": [
"The atmosphere scatters more blue light"
]
}
]
},
In some cases, facts can be returned as _type: StructuredValue/TabularData. The following query gets tabular data with contrasting information about coffee and tea.
https://labsportalppe.azure-api.net/answerSearch/v7.0/search?q=coffee+vs+tea&mkt=en-us
The facts results include the following rows and cells:
"value": [
{
"subjectName": "Coffee vs. Tea",
"richCaption": {
"_type": "StructuredValue/TabularData",
"header": [
"",
"Coffee",
"Tea"
],
"rows": [
{
"cells": [
{
"text": "Part of plant used"
},
{
"text": "Bean"
},
{
"text": "Leaf"
}
]
},
{
"cells": [
{
"text": "Caffeine Content"
},
{
"text": "80-185 mg per 8 ounce cup depending upon the brew and the..."
},
{
"text": "15 - 70 mg per cup"
}
]
},
{
"cells": [
{
"text": "Types of Consumption"
},
{
"text": "Drip Coffee"
},
{
"text": "White Tea"
}
]
},
{
"cells": [
{
"text": "Additions"
},
{
"text": "Sugar"
},
{
"text": "Milk"
}
]
}
],
"seeMoreUrl": {
"text": "8 more rows",
"url": "https://www.diffen.com/difference/Coffee_vs_Tea"
}
}
}
]
},