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Bing Webmaster Tools is Microsoft’s free dashboard for website owners. It lets you verify your domain, submit a sitemap, inspect individual URLs, monitor search performance, and tell Bing about new or updated pages.
The basic setup takes around fifteen minutes:
- Verify ownership of your website.
- Submit your XML sitemap.
- Inspect and submit your most important URLs.
- Enable IndexNow for ongoing updates.
The payoff is larger than many founders assume. Bing does not only power results on Bing.com. Its search infrastructure also supports Microsoft experiences such as Copilot and other Bing-connected discovery surfaces.
Most small teams verify their website with Google Search Console and stop there. That leaves a gap in their indexing workflow.
Google and Bing maintain separate crawling and indexing systems. Being indexed by Google does not automatically mean your pages have been discovered, processed, or indexed by Bing.
Why Bother With Bing at All?
Bing’s market share is much smaller than Google’s, but comparing the two purely by market share misses the point.
Bing visibility can extend beyond traditional Bing.com results into Microsoft products, Windows and Edge experiences, Copilot-powered discovery, and partner search surfaces.
There is also a competitive gap you can exploit.
Most SEO teams direct nearly all their attention toward Google and rarely open Bing Webmaster Tools. We explored this pattern in why most SEO tools ignore Bing.
The result is less competition for many of the same crawl, indexing, and search-visibility fundamentals, at almost no additional cost.
[Image: Bing Webmaster Tools dashboard showing a verified website, search performance and crawl statistics]
How Do I Verify My Site in Bing Webmaster Tools?
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Go to bing.com/webmasters and sign in with a Microsoft, Google, or Facebook account.
You can then add your website using one of two approaches.
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Option 1: Import From Google Search Console
If your website is already verified in Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools can import your verified properties and sitemap information.
This is usually the fastest setup method because you do not need to add another verification tag or DNS record manually.
Importing the property does not merge the two search engines’ indexes or reporting. It simply makes it easier to prove ownership and transfer some configuration information.
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Option 2: Verify Your Website Manually
Bing provides three common verification methods:
XML file upload
Download the verification file provided by Bing and upload it to your website’s root directory.
This method is straightforward when you have direct access to your website’s files or hosting account.
Meta tag
Copy the verification meta tag and paste it into the <head> section of your homepage.
This is often the fastest option for WordPress, Webflow, Shopify, and other content management systems.
DNS record
Add the provided CNAME record through your domain registrar or DNS provider.
DNS verification is useful when you want verification to remain independent of your website’s theme, CMS, or hosting files. It can also be convenient when managing multiple subdomains.
Once the verification method is in place, return to Bing Webmaster Tools and click Verify.
Do not remove the verification file, meta tag, or DNS record after setup. Bing may check it again later.
How Do I Submit a Sitemap to Bing?
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After verifying the site, open Sitemaps from the Bing Webmaster Tools menu.
Enter your sitemap URL, which will usually look like this:
https://example.com/sitemap.xml
Then click Submit.
Bing may eventually discover your sitemap without manual submission, particularly when it is referenced in your robots.txt file. Submitting it through Bing Webmaster Tools confirms its location immediately and gives you a place to monitor its processing status.
Your sitemap should only contain canonical, indexable URLs that return successful status codes.
Avoid including:
- Redirected URLs
- Broken pages
- URLs blocked by
robots.txt - Pages carrying a
noindexdirective - Duplicate or non-canonical URLs
- Internal search and filtered navigation pages
A sitemap full of broken, redirected, or non-indexable URLs wastes crawl attention and makes indexing reports harder to interpret.
It is also worth remembering that a sitemap is a discovery signal, not an indexing guarantee. Bing can find a URL through your sitemap and still decide not to index it.
Strong internal linking remains important. Bing specifically recommends crawlable internal links as one of the ways to help it discover URLs. Pages with no internal links are harder for both users and search engines to find.
For a deeper explanation of the discovery and indexing pipeline, read why your competitors rank faster than you.
What Is the URL Submission Tool?
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The URL Submission feature allows you to send specific pages directly to Bing for crawling.
Depending on the current interface, you may find this functionality under URL Submission or through actions available in URL Inspection.
It is useful when:
- You have just published a new page.
- You have made a substantial update to an existing page.
- You have fixed a technical indexing problem.
- An important pricing, product, service, or landing page is missing from Bing.
- You have removed a
noindexdirective or crawl block. - A page has returned after being unavailable.
Manual submission tells Bing that the URL should be revisited. It does not guarantee that the page will be indexed or ranked.
Bing currently supports a generous daily URL-submission quota, but manually entering URLs still becomes inefficient when you publish or update pages regularly.
For an occasional page, manual submission works well. For an ongoing publishing workflow, use IndexNow.
What Is IndexNow, and Why Does It Matter?
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IndexNow is an open protocol that allows websites to notify participating search engines whenever a URL is added, updated, or deleted.
Traditional crawling is passive. You publish a page, update your sitemap, add internal links, and wait for search engines to return.
IndexNow creates a more direct workflow.
When a page changes, your website sends a notification containing its URL. Participating search engines can then decide when to crawl it, rather than waiting to discover the change independently.
IndexNow can be especially useful for:
- New blog posts
- Updated product pages
- Price and inventory changes
- New landing pages
- Documentation updates
- Time-sensitive content
- Deleted or redirected URLs
- Large websites publishing content frequently
IndexNow does not guarantee indexing or rankings. It reduces the delay between making a change and informing search engines that the change exists.
That distinction matters. Faster discovery gives a page an earlier opportunity to be crawled and evaluated, but the page must still meet Bing’s quality and indexing requirements.
This is one reason publishing faster will not save your SEO strategy unless indexing keeps up. Producing more pages does not create search visibility when those pages remain undiscovered or unindexed.
How Do I Set Up IndexNow?
The easiest setup method depends on your website platform.
Many SEO plugins, content-management systems, CDNs, and indexing tools support IndexNow directly. In those cases, you may only need to enable the integration.
A manual implementation generally involves:
- Generating an IndexNow API key.
- Hosting the key file at the required location on your domain.
- Sending the URL and key to an IndexNow endpoint whenever content changes.
- Monitoring submissions for errors or failed requests.
You do not need to submit every page repeatedly. Notify IndexNow when a URL is created, meaningfully updated, or deleted.
Avoid sending notifications for insignificant changes that do not affect the page’s content or indexing state.
Cromojo’s automated indexing workflow helps remove this manual step by submitting new and updated URLs as part of your publishing process.
How Do I Use URL Inspection?
URL Inspection is one of the most useful tools inside Bing Webmaster Tools.
Enter a full URL to see information about its crawl and indexing status.
The report can help you answer questions such as:
- Has Bing discovered the URL?
- Has Bing crawled it?
- Is the page indexed?
- Is crawling blocked?
- Is the page considered canonical?
- Did Bing encounter an SEO or markup issue?
- When was the page last crawled?
- Can the URL be submitted again?
When a URL is not indexed, start by checking the technical fundamentals:
- Does the page return a
200status code? - Is it blocked in
robots.txt? - Does it contain a
noindexdirective? - Does its canonical tag point somewhere else?
- Is the page included in your sitemap?
- Do other pages on your site link to it?
- Is the content original and substantial?
- Is the page accessible without signing in?
- Does it load reliably for Bingbot?
A page can be technically crawlable and still remain unindexed. Search engines are not obligated to index every URL they discover.
For a broader look at the reasons content fails to appear in search, read why your content is not ranking.
How Do I Read the Bing Webmaster Tools Reports?
Several reports are useful, but three deserve regular attention.
Site Explorer
Site Explorer helps you understand how Bing sees your website’s structure.
You can use it to investigate:
- Indexed URLs
- Crawled URLs
- Pages with errors
- Pages excluded from the index
- Folder-level indexing patterns
- Click and impression data
- Backlink information
This is particularly useful when a specific section of your website is underperforming. For example, you may discover that product pages are indexed while an entire blog directory is being ignored.
Search Performance
Search Performance shows how people find your website through Bing.
Typical metrics include:
- Search impressions
- Clicks
- Click-through rate
- Average search position
- Queries
- Pages
- Countries
- Devices
Do not evaluate these metrics in isolation.
A page receiving many impressions but few clicks may need a stronger title or description. A page with clicks but no conversions may be attracting the wrong intent. A page generating revenue from a small amount of traffic may deserve more attention than one producing thousands of low-value impressions.
This is why traditional SEO reports can be misleading. Rankings, impressions, and traffic matter, but they become more useful when connected to business outcomes.
URL Inspection
URL Inspection helps diagnose individual pages.
Use it whenever:
- A new page does not appear in Bing.
- An existing page disappears from the index.
- A canonical URL changes.
- A technical issue has been fixed.
- A priority page receives no impressions.
- A page has been redirected or restored.
Check your reports at least once a month. Websites that publish frequently should review them more often.
A sudden decline in indexed pages may point to a technical change, such as:
- An accidental
noindexdirective - A
robots.txtblock - A server outage
- Broken canonical tags
- Redirect errors
- Sitemap problems
- Deleted internal links
- Significant content duplication
Do not immediately assume that an indexing decline is a penalty. Investigate technical and structural changes first.
How Can I Confirm That Bing Has Indexed a Page?
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The most reliable method is URL Inspection inside Bing Webmaster Tools.
You can also run a quick Bing search using:
site:example.com/page-url
When the page appears, Bing has indexed it. When it does not appear, use URL Inspection before drawing a conclusion, as search operators are better suited to quick spot checks than complete index auditing.
You should also monitor indexing over time.
A page being indexed today does not guarantee that it will remain indexed forever. Search engines continuously reevaluate URLs based on accessibility, duplication, quality, relevance, canonical signals, and other factors.
The same principle applies to Google. Cromojo’s Google index checker guide explains how to spot-check URLs and monitor indexing changes on the Google side.
Do I Have to Manage This Manually Forever?
No, and for a growing website, you probably should not.
Manually verifying properties, submitting sitemaps, inspecting pages, and entering URLs one at a time is the kind of maintenance work that gets skipped as soon as the team becomes busy.
A more reliable workflow is event-based:
- A page is published or updated.
- Its sitemap information is refreshed.
- The URL is submitted through IndexNow or the appropriate search-engine workflow.
- Its indexing status is monitored.
- Failures are surfaced for investigation.
- High-value pages are prioritized.
Cromojo’s automated indexing workflow helps submit and monitor URLs across the publishing lifecycle, rather than relying on someone to remember to open multiple webmaster dashboards.
This becomes increasingly important as a website grows.
When unindexed pages accumulate, the team develops indexing debt: a backlog of URLs that need to be investigated, corrected, resubmitted, and monitored. Clearing that backlog later is usually more difficult than maintaining a healthy indexing workflow from the beginning.
For the Google side of the process, see the complete guide to Google indexing.
Does Bing Indexing Help With AI Search Visibility?
Bing indexing can improve your eligibility to appear across Bing and Microsoft-powered search experiences, including Copilot-related discovery.
However, no indexing tool can guarantee that an AI assistant will cite or recommend a page.
AI-search visibility still depends on factors such as:
- Whether the page can be crawled
- Whether it has been indexed by the relevant system
- Whether its content clearly answers the question
- Whether claims are supported and credible
- Whether the page structure is easy to interpret
- Whether the source appears trustworthy
- Whether the content is current
- Whether the page offers original value
Bing Webmaster Tools addresses discovery and indexing. It does not replace content quality, technical SEO, strong internal linking, or brand credibility.
For more on preparing content for answer engines, read how to build a website that AI wants to cite.
It is also important not to treat Bing indexing as the only requirement for ChatGPT Search. OpenAI operates its own search crawler, OAI-SearchBot, and may also work with external search providers. Websites seeking visibility in ChatGPT Search should make sure OAI-SearchBot is not blocked in robots.txt.
A Practical Bing Webmaster Tools Checklist
Use this checklist after adding a new website:
- Verify the website in Bing Webmaster Tools.
- Confirm the preferred domain and protocol.
- Submit the primary XML sitemap.
- Remove broken and non-indexable URLs from the sitemap.
- Confirm that important pages have crawlable internal links.
- Inspect the homepage and several priority pages.
- Submit important new or recently corrected URLs.
- Enable IndexNow.
- Review Site Explorer for blocked or excluded sections.
- Review Search Performance regularly.
- Monitor priority URLs after publishing.
- Investigate sudden indexing declines.
- Connect indexing data to traffic, leads, and revenue.
The Bottom Line
Bing Webmaster Tools is free and can be set up in less than fifteen minutes.
Start with the essentials:
- Verify your website.
- Submit your sitemap.
- Inspect your most important pages.
- Enable IndexNow.
- Monitor indexing and search performance.
Bing will not replace Google as the primary organic-search channel for most websites. It does not need to.
It provides access to an additional search ecosystem with its own crawler, index, users, and Microsoft-powered discovery surfaces. Ignoring it leaves a preventable gap in your search strategy.
Getting indexed is only the beginning. Once pages start receiving visibility, the next question is which pages and queries produce meaningful business results.
Cromojo’s revenue analytics connects website activity with revenue data, helping you identify which landing pages, campaigns, and search visits contribute to actual sales.
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