I got to grips with using loc:gb (Bing's way of limiting results to UK-only websites) in place of location:uk (Google's equivalent, and only supported on Google News anyway, not on Google Web Search).
I've come to terms with the fact that, if I want to search for images that are subject to a Creative Commons licence, I have to switch to the US version of Bing Image Search, not the UK version which I have set as default.
But as most of my work involves writing timely blog/news content for clients' websites, the thing I've really missed has been the ability to restrict my results to the past day, week, month or so on.
Until now...
The solution I'm about to outline is not particularly elegant, but it works without having to switch to a different country's version of Bing, or delve into advanced search settings.
All you need to remember is the following, seemingly random sequence of characters:
&tbs=qdr:
Append it to the end of your Bing Search results page URL (which probably ends with &sk= by default) and you can limit your results by one of the following time periods:
d - the past 24 hours (or 'day', if you prefer...!)
w - the past week
m - the past month (not sure if this means 28 days, 30 days, exact calendar month etc)
y - the past year
So to limit results to the past week, you would paste &tbs=qdr:w on to the end of the URL.
It's a slightly awkward, messy hack, but given how messy Google has always been at limiting or sorting by date/recency, I actually don't find this method to be any less convenient than ploughing into Google's Search Tools bar only for it to claim that sorting by date means there are now zero results.
As far as I know, there's no GUI setting in Bing Search at the moment to access this functionality, but I've tested it and pasting the parameter on to the URL manually is working for me at the moment.
One more nail in the Google coffin; one more (for me) essential function I can now do with Bing. Hooray!
Update: If you find it hard to remember that URL snippet you need to add to your search results, you might want to do what I've just done.
Hit ctrl-d to bookmark/favorite this page, place it on your favorites bar, and name it &tbs=qdr (you won't be allowed to include the : but hopefully you can remember to add :d for day, :w for week, etc.).
You should now have a little link on your favorites bar, which displays &tbs=qdr as a handy reminder, and if you're ever totally stuck just click it to come to this page for a full reminder of what you need to do.
Update: If you find it hard to remember that URL snippet you need to add to your search results, you might want to do what I've just done.
Hit ctrl-d to bookmark/favorite this page, place it on your favorites bar, and name it &tbs=qdr (you won't be allowed to include the : but hopefully you can remember to add :d for day, :w for week, etc.).
You should now have a little link on your favorites bar, which displays &tbs=qdr as a handy reminder, and if you're ever totally stuck just click it to come to this page for a full reminder of what you need to do.
