Now that Zach’s given you the user-friendly introduction to how macros work, let me take you on a tour of the gears and inner workings that we expose in our advanced syntax. These operators allow you to do some really interesting things with macros.

A New Operator

We have one new, very exciting operator: LinkFromDomain. Using LinkFromDomain in your search includes all sites that are linked from a given domain. This complements LinkDomain (which includes all sites that link to a given domain) that was introduced back in June, 05.

The visual below depicts “YourSite.com” and a set of related sites. The Blue nodes represent sites with reciprocal links, while the yellow nodes are sites you link to, and the green nodes sites that link to you. Here’s how you would capture these domains with advanced syntax:

For more insights into the use of linkFromDomain, check out the form-based demo over at my MSDN blog. This syntax can be mixed freely with our wide range of other advanced search operators.

Crafting Macros with Advanced Syntax

Macros allow you to bundle up syntax into easy to reference keywords. Using the advanced path in the macro creation wizard, you can experiment with different syntaxs and preview the results versus the normal live search results.

Compare the results for the query RAM on Live Search and on Live Search with my Windows Vista macro. The gallery page for this macro shows it’s definition. I use a key set of trusted sites to define a network of great sources for Vista information.

Another fun tweak for any macro is the feed: operator which returns RSS feeds. Try the feed: operator with the Windows Vista macro for a great set of blogs to watch as Vista rolls out.

This is an example of chaining together macros. Say you want to find podcasts in the gadget commnunity about dvrs. This query combines the livesearch podcast macro and my gadget macro. In case you missed it the first time around, the contains: operator allows you to find pages that have a particular file type, like a music file or Office document.

Learn and Play at the Gallery

While we’ve got some plans to get macros in the hands of every user, in the meantime, you can try out, see how macros work, and share your own macros at Gallery.Live.com.

In addition to lots of user crafted macros, the search team has seeded the gallery categories celebrities, sports, and cities in culture.

I’ve been experimenting with capturing communities on the web with the link domain operators. Perhaps you’re interested in:

• recovery from lasik surgery (andyed.lasik)
• teaching your baby sign language (andyed.babysignlanguage)
• dennis miller on the daily show (andyed.dailyshow)
• a review of the 2005 movie The Island (andyed.moviereviews)
• a walkthrough for Perfect Dark Zero on XBOX 360 (andyed.xboxgametips)
• figuring out a tough excel macro (andyed.msofficetips)

Other folks are experimenting with different types of macros. Try:

• learning 7-card stud (kenmo.poker)
• podcasts about Zune music player (livesearch.podcasts)
• pages about rose varieties with pictures (twentyone.pure_picture_returns)

As excited as I am about our improvements in empowering users to use the link structure of the web, there are great possibilities in all of our advanced syntax, from inanchor: to feed:. Speaking of which, if you want to track macros in your news aggregator, try subscribing to some of the feeds in this search “feed: macro:andyed.windowslive search macros”.

--Andy Edmonds, Program Management/Relevance Geek