Bing Webmaster Tools: your 2026 guide to indexing and AI visibility

Most site owners set up Google Search Console, submit a sitemap, and never think about Bing again. That was defensible a few years ago. However, it isn’t anymore. Bing Webmaster Tools is Microsoft’s free dashboard for seeing how Bing discovers, crawls, and indexes your site — and in 2026 that same index quietly powers a large slice of AI search. So this guide explains what the tool does, how to set it up in minutes, and which reports are actually worth your time.

What is Bing Webmaster Tools?

Bing Webmaster Tools is the Microsoft counterpart to Google Search Console. Once you verify ownership of your site, it gives you crawl and indexing diagnostics, search-performance data, backlink reports, an on-demand SEO audit, and tools to submit URLs and sitemaps. Moreover, everything is free — there is no premium tier and no paid upgrade. So if you have ever used Search Console, the mental model transfers almost directly; the reports simply cover Bing’s index instead of Google’s.

Why Bing Webmaster Tools matters more in 2026

For years the honest answer to “should I bother with Bing?” was “probably not — it’s a rounding error.” However, the rise of AI search changed that. Bing’s index is the retrieval layer behind Microsoft Copilot, and it has long been the backbone of ChatGPT’s web search as well. So when one of those assistants answers a question from live web pages, it is frequently pulling from pages that Bing has crawled and indexed.

That leads to a blunt consequence: a page Bing has not indexed is invisible to every AI answer built on Bing’s index. In fact, plenty of sites that rank perfectly well on Google sit unindexed on Bing for a boring reason — nobody ever submitted the sitemap. Therefore, Bing Webmaster Tools is where you find and fix exactly that.

How to set up Bing Webmaster Tools

Setup takes about ten minutes:

1. First, sign in with a Microsoft account at the Bing Webmaster Tools site.
2. Then add your site — either import it directly from Google Search Console (the fastest route, which carries your verification and sitemaps across) or add the URL manually.
3. Next, verify ownership if you added manually, using an XML file, a meta tag, or a DNS/CNAME record.
4. After that, submit your sitemap (usually /sitemap_index.xml if you use Yoast) so Bing can discover your pages.
5. Finally, set up IndexNow so new and updated pages get pushed to Bing automatically.

If you already run Google Search Console, the import option collapses most of these steps into a couple of clicks. New to that side too? Then see our companion guide to Google Search Console.

The reports that actually matter

Once verified, a handful of reports do most of the useful work:

Report	What it shows	Why it matters
Search Performance	Impressions, clicks, and average position by query, page and country — up to 16 months of history	Shows what you already rank for on Bing, and the exact phrasing its users search with
URL Inspection	Indexing status, the live HTML Bingbot sees, HTTP response and robots.txt blocks (formerly Fetch as Bingbot)	Tells you why a page is or isn’t indexed, and lets you request indexing
Site Scan	An on-demand technical audit flagging missing titles, meta issues and crawl problems	Catches on-page SEO issues without waiting for a crawl cycle
Backlinks	Referring domains, linked pages and anchor text — for your site or any domain	Free competitor backlink data, which Search Console does not offer
IndexNow	Instant submission of new, updated or removed URLs	Gets fresh content into the index in minutes, not days
AI Performance	How often Copilot cites your pages, and the grounding queries behind them	The first official read on your AI search visibility

IndexNow — the fastest way to get indexed

IndexNow is a simple protocol: when you publish, update, or delete a page, your site pings Bing (and other participating engines such as Yandex and Naver) so they re-crawl it immediately, instead of waiting for a scheduled crawl. Because Bing allows generous daily submission limits, it comfortably handles most sites.

You rarely have to do this by hand. In fact, modern SEO plugins like Yoast and Rank Math support IndexNow natively — you drop in your IndexNow key (found under Settings in Bing Webmaster Tools) and every publish pings Bing automatically. Still, one caveat: submission gets the crawler to the page, but internal links are what convince Bing to keep it indexed, so submit a page after its internal links are live. Note too that Google does not participate in IndexNow — instead it sticks to its own crawling — so IndexNow covers the non-Google search world.

The AI Performance report

Launched as a public preview in February 2026 and expanded in June, the AI Performance report is the genuinely new reason to open Bing Webmaster Tools in 2026. Specifically, it shows how often Microsoft Copilot and Bing’s AI summaries cite pages from your site, which pages get referenced, and the internal grounding queries an assistant generates while building an answer.

Still, two honest caveats apply. First, it is a preview-era tool, and Microsoft is careful not to oversell it. Second, it covers Microsoft’s own surfaces — Copilot, Bing AI summaries and a few partners — not ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, or Perplexity, none of which publish this kind of data yet. In short, it is a partial view. Even so, it is the first partial view anyone has offered.

Bing Webmaster Tools vs Google Search Console

This is not an either/or. On one hand, Google Search Console covers the far larger traffic engine and has richer indexing-coverage reporting. On the other hand, Bing Webmaster Tools covers the index AI assistants retrieve from, and adds extras Search Console lacks — native IndexNow, backlink data for any domain, an on-demand site audit, and the AI Performance report. Moreover, they take about the same time to set up, and neither replaces the other. So set up both.

Frequently asked questions

Is Bing Webmaster Tools free?

Yes, entirely. Every feature — sitemaps, URL inspection, search performance, the SEO analyzer, backlinks, IndexNow and AI Performance — is free. Moreover, you only need a Microsoft account, and there is no premium tier.

Do I still need it if I already use Google Search Console?

Yes. They serve different search engines and surface different data. Specifically, Search Console covers Google, while Bing Webmaster Tools covers Bing’s index, which is what Copilot and ChatGPT’s web search draw on. Moreover, the Search Console import even lets you set Bing up in a couple of clicks.

What is IndexNow?

Basically, it is a protocol that lets your site instantly notify Bing and other participating engines whenever you add, update, or remove a page, so they re-crawl it right away. In addition, Yoast and Rank Math can handle it automatically.

Does Bing Webmaster Tools help with AI search visibility?

Indirectly, yes. First, getting indexed in Bing is the precondition for appearing in Copilot and other Bing-powered AI answers. In addition, the AI Performance report shows how often Copilot actually cites you.

The bottom line

Bing Webmaster Tools used to be the tool you set up out of completeness and forgot. In 2026, however, it earns a real place in your workflow: it is free, it takes minutes, and it governs whether your content is even eligible to appear in the AI answers more and more people rely on. So verify your site, submit your sitemap, wire up IndexNow, and check the AI Performance report now and then. Then do the same on the Google side — Google Search Console and a plugin like Yoast SEO cover the rest.