Bing Webmaster Tools

Bing Webmaster Tools is Microsoft’s free service for monitoring and managing how a website appears in Bing search. It shows search performance, indexing status, crawl issues and backlinks, and lets site owners submit sitemaps and URLs directly to Bing.

Written by Paul Hoda, SEO consultant since 2005. Last updated 8 November 2026.

Why it matters

Bing has a smaller share of searches than Google in the UK, but its index reaches further than Bing.com itself. Bing results power or contribute to other services, including Microsoft Copilot and some third-party search engines. Making sure Bing can crawl and index your site properly is a simple way to support Bing SEO and visibility in tools that rely on its index, such as Microsoft Copilot.

How to set it up

  1. Sign in with a Microsoft, Google or Facebook account.
  2. Choose to import your sites from Google Search Console, which verifies them and copies across sitemaps in one step.
  3. Alternatively, add a site manually and verify it with an XML file, a meta tag or a DNS record.
  4. Submit your XML sitemap if it was not imported.

Key reports and tools

  • Search Performance: clicks, impressions, average position and click-through rate by query and page.
  • URL Inspection: shows whether a URL is indexed and flags issues Bing found when crawling it.
  • URL Submission and IndexNow: push new or updated URLs to Bing quickly. IndexNow is an open protocol that notifies participating search engines when content changes.
  • Site Scan: a built-in crawler that reports technical problems such as missing titles, broken links and redirect issues.
  • Backlinks: lists sites linking to you and lets you compare backlink profiles with other domains.
  • Keyword Research: shows search volume and related terms based on Bing data.
  • Robots.txt Tester: checks whether your robots.txt rules block Bingbot.

How it differs from Search Console

The two tools cover similar ground, but there are useful differences. Bing Webmaster Tools includes its own site audit crawler, backlink data for any domain and a keyword research tool, none of which Google Search Console offers. Search Console, on the other hand, has more detailed indexing and Core Web Vitals reporting for Google.

How to use it in a routine

  1. Check the Search Performance report monthly and compare top queries with your Google data. Differences can reveal pages that Bing ranks differently.
  2. Run Site Scan after major site changes and fix any new errors.
  3. Review the Sitemaps report to confirm Bing is processing your files without errors.
  4. Set up IndexNow through your CMS or CDN so new and updated pages are reported automatically.
  5. Watch for crawl errors and messages from Bing in the dashboard.

Common mistakes

  • Never setting it up because Bing traffic seems small.
  • Blocking Bingbot by accident with overly strict firewall or robots.txt rules.
  • Ignoring Site Scan warnings that would also affect Google.
  • Forgetting to add new subdomains or country sites as they launch.

Key Takeaways

  • Bing Webmaster Tools is Microsoft’s free console for monitoring a site in Bing.
  • You can import sites from Google Search Console to set it up in minutes.
  • Bing’s index supports other services, including Microsoft Copilot.
  • It offers extras such as Site Scan, backlink data and keyword research.
  • IndexNow lets you notify Bing quickly when pages change.

Related Terms

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