Bing Webmaster Tools: A Setup Guide for the AI Search Era

Bing Webmaster Tools is Microsoft's free console for checking how Bing crawls, indexes and shows your site, and in 2026 it is also the only free first-party report of how often your pages are cited in Copilot answers. If you already use Google Search Console, you can import your site and be verified in about five minutes. This guide covers the setup, the reports worth opening, IndexNow, the API, and how all of it connects to ChatGPT and Copilot.

Published: 2026-10-27 · 7 min read · Satelo

Why Bing matters more than its search share suggests

Most small sites ignore Bing because Google sends most of their search visits. That made sense when Bing was only a search engine. Today Bing's index also feeds AI answers:

• Microsoft Copilot and Bing's AI summaries cite web pages, and Bing Webmaster Tools now reports those citations in its AI Performance report (more below).
• ChatGPT: in May 2023 Microsoft announced it was bringing Bing to ChatGPT as the default search experience. OpenAI does not publish a current list of the search providers behind ChatGPT search, so treat Bing indexing as a cheap hedge, not a guarantee. ChatGPT also has its own crawler: OpenAI's documentation says sites that block OAI-SearchBot will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers.
• Other engines: pages you push through IndexNow are shared with every search engine that supports the protocol.

Bing's own team describes the shift: the index is moving from ranking pages to supplying evidence for answers, and its May 2026 post says the goal is to fetch the best information to build a reliable, verifiable answer. A page Bing never indexed can't be that evidence.

Setup option 1: import from Google Search Console (5 minutes)

This is the fastest route if your site is already verified in Search Console. According to Bing's announcement of the feature:

1. Go to bing.com/webmasters and sign in.
2. On the My Sites page, click Import.
3. Sign in with the Google account that has access to Search Console and grant read access.
4. Select the sites you want and click Import.

Imported sites are verified automatically, and their sitemaps come along. You can import up to 100 sites at a time. Traffic data can take up to 48 hours to appear. Bing periodically rechecks ownership against Search Console, so if you later revoke that access, verify the site another way before it drops off.

Setup option 2: verify manually

Use this if you don't use Search Console or want verification that doesn't depend on Google. Bing supports:

After verifying, submit your XML sitemap under Sitemaps. Bing accepts XML, RSS and Atom sitemaps. If you are unsure your sitemap and robots.txt agree with each other, check that first; a sitemap listing URLs that robots.txt blocks just generates errors.

The first-week checklist

Once the site is in, these are the six things worth doing in the first week. Each takes a few minutes.

1. Sitemaps: confirm status is "Success" and the discovered URL count looks like your real page count.
2. URL Inspection: inspect your homepage and one important article. You'll see whether each is indexed, and a live test shows what Bingbot can fetch.
3. Robots.txt tester: make sure you aren't blocking Bingbot or your CSS and JS files.
4. Site Scan / SEO reports: run a scan and fix errors first (broken pages, missing titles), warnings later.
5. IndexNow: turn it on (next section), so new and updated pages reach Bing without waiting for a crawl.
6. AI Performance: open it and note your baseline citation count, even if it is zero.

The reports worth opening (and what to skip)

Bing's own comparison with Search Console lists the main features. Here's how a small site should prioritize them:

IndexNow: the feature that makes Bing different

IndexNow is an open protocol: when you publish, update or delete a page, your site pings a participating search engine, and that engine shares the URL with the others. You prove ownership with a text key file on your domain, and one request can carry up to 10,000 URLs. The documentation is clear that a successful response only means the URLs were received, not that they will be indexed.

How to turn it on:

• WordPress: use an SEO plugin or a dedicated IndexNow plugin. Step-by-step setup is in our IndexNow for WordPress guide.
• Cloudflare or a CDN with IndexNow support: enable it in the dashboard.
• Custom site: host the key file and send a POST to an IndexNow endpoint after each publish. If the term is new to you, see the IndexNow glossary entry.

IndexNow notifications also show up in Bing Webmaster Tools, so you can confirm your pings arrive.

The AI Performance report, explained

Bing launched AI Performance in public preview in February 2026. It covers Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and select partner integrations, and shows:

• Total citations: how many times your pages appeared as sources in AI answers in the period.
• Average cited pages: unique pages cited per day.
• Grounding queries: the key phrases the AI used when retrieving your content.
• Page-level citation activity and a visibility trend over time.

Bing states the data is a sample of overall citation activity. In June 2026 it added Intents, Topics, Citation Share and period comparison in preview. Citation Share shows what percentage of citations for a query go to your site; Bing frames it as an observation, not a ranking.

How to use it on a small site (illustrative example): your report shows 40 citations last month, almost all to one comparison article, with grounding queries like "free alternative to X for small teams." That tells you which question Copilot trusts you to answer. Write the next article around a neighboring question, link the two, and compare the period next month. The full playbook for Microsoft's assistant is in how to rank in Copilot.

Bing Webmaster Tools API in brief

If you run several sites or a custom CMS, the API lets you submit URLs and pull data without the dashboard. Bing's setup guide says the key is generated under Settings → API Access, each user has one key that works across their sites, and a regenerated key becomes active within 30 minutes. Keep the key out of client-side code and public repositories. For most small sites, IndexNow does the same job with less effort.

When pages still don't show up in Bing

Many of these causes overlap with Google's "crawled, not indexed" status, covered in this guide.

What to do next

1. Import your site from Search Console today (5 minutes).
2. Turn on IndexNow and submit your sitemap.
3. Write down your AI Performance baseline and check it monthly.
4. Check that your robots.txt lets Bingbot and OAI-SearchBot in. Our free AI crawler checker reads it in seconds.

Indexing gets your pages seen. Being mentioned on other relevant sites gives AI answers a reason to trust them. If you run WordPress, the free Satelo plugin connects your site to a small public-beta network where similar sites publish partner articles about each other in a circle, every link marked rel="sponsored". It takes one click to connect.

FAQ

Is Bing Webmaster Tools free?

Yes. Bing Webmaster Tools is free. You sign in and verify your site, either by importing it from Google Search Console or with an XML file, meta tag or DNS record.

How do I sign up for Bing Webmaster Tools?

Go to bing.com/webmasters, sign in, and on the My Sites page either click Import to bring sites from Google Search Console or add a site manually and verify it. Imported sites are verified automatically.

Does Bing Webmaster Tools help with ChatGPT?

Indirectly. Microsoft announced Bing as the default search experience for ChatGPT in 2023, but OpenAI does not publish its current search providers. Make sure Bing indexes your pages and that robots.txt allows OAI-SearchBot, which OpenAI uses for ChatGPT search.

How long does Bing take to index a new site?

There is no fixed time. Bing says traffic data for an imported site can take up to 48 hours to appear. Submitting a sitemap and using IndexNow helps Bing discover new pages faster, but neither guarantees indexing.

What is the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools?

A report, in public preview since February 2026, that shows how often your pages are cited in Microsoft Copilot, Bing AI summaries and select partner integrations, which pages were cited and the grounding queries behind them. Bing says the data is a sample.

Do I need IndexNow if I already submit a sitemap?

It is optional but useful. A sitemap tells Bing what exists; IndexNow tells participating engines the moment a page is added, updated or deleted. Many WordPress SEO plugins can send IndexNow pings automatically.

Is there a Bing Webmaster Tools API?

Yes. You generate an API key in the settings under API Access. It lets you submit URLs and pull data programmatically. For most small sites, IndexNow is simpler.

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