Bing Webmaster Tools and IndexNow for a Business Website

Why bother with Bing

Bing's Webmaster Guidelines say they describe how Bing discovers, crawls, indexes and surfaces content "across Bing search experiences, Copilot, and grounding API results". In other words, whether Bing can crawl and index your pages decides whether they can appear in Bing results and be cited in Copilot answers. Bing Webmaster Tools is the free tool that shows what Bing sees on your site. If your site is already in Google Search Console, Bing can import it from there. Paid placement on Bing is separate and runs through Microsoft Advertising.

Adding and verifying your site

Bing's add and verify page describes two ways to add a site:

• Import from Google Search Console. You give Bing Webmaster Tools permission to read your Search Console account. It lists your verified sites with their sitemaps, and the sites you pick are added and verified automatically. Bing says you can import up to 100 sites at a time. It also re-checks ownership periodically through Search Console and imports any new sitemaps it finds there. You can disconnect the Search Console account under Profile.
• Add the site manually by entering its URL and then proving ownership.

For manual verification, Bing lists four methods:

• DNS auto verification through the Domain Connect standard, offered only for DNS providers that support it;
• uploading a BingSiteAuth.xml file to the site's root folder;
• adding a <meta> tag to the <head> of the home page;
• adding a CNAME record in DNS.

Bing says that once a site is added, "it usually takes 48 hours" for its system to generate analytics and data, so an empty dashboard on day one is normal. If your site is not yet in Search Console, our Search Console guide covers that first, and the import route then handles Bing.

Sitemaps in Bing

Bing's sitemaps page says sitemaps help Bing find URLs that its crawler might otherwise miss. Bing accepts XML sitemaps, RSS 2.0, Atom 0.3 and 1.0 feeds, and plain text files with one URL per line. The Sitemaps report lists every sitemap Bing knows for the site: the ones you submitted, the ones imported from Search Console and the ones Bing found on its own. For each one it shows the processing status, the URLs discovered and the exact errors to fix. You can also point to your sitemap from robots.txt with a Sitemap: line.

The guidelines add what a good sitemap contains: only canonical URLs, the current site structure, no deleted or redirected URLs, and freshness signals such as an accurate lastmod date. Bing notes that sitemaps "do not guarantee visibility".

IndexNow: what it is and who uses it

Search engines find changes by recrawling, and they do not recrawl every URL often. The IndexNow site says that without it, "it can take days to weeks" for search engines to notice changed content. IndexNow is an open protocol: your site sends a simple notification whenever a URL is added, updated or deleted.

Search engines that adopt the protocol agree to share submitted URLs with all other participating engines, so one notification reaches all of them. The list published on IndexNow.org currently names Bing, Yandex, Seznam.cz, Naver, Yep, the Internet Archive and Amazonbot. Google is not on that list, so for Google you still rely on sitemaps, links and Search Console.

The IndexNow FAQ is clear about limits. Submitting a URL "does not guarantee immediate indexing", and the protocol is meant for changed URLs, not for sending your whole site every day. The FAQ says it is acceptable to submit all URLs after a migration or redesign. Our redesign SEO guide covers that moment. The FAQ also recommends using IndexNow and sitemaps together: IndexNow for changes and the sitemap as the full inventory. It says you should submit redirected URLs and pages that now return 404 or 410, so engines can drop them.

Setting up IndexNow

Check whether your platform already sends IndexNow notifications before you build anything. The IndexNow FAQ lists WordPress, Shopify, Wix, GoDaddy, Duda, Joomla!, Drupal, PrestaShop, Typo3 and others as supporting it natively or through SEO plugins. It names Cloudflare as a CDN with built-in support. Bing's IndexNow page suggests checking Bing Webmaster Tools to see whether your URLs are already arriving. When a CMS, host or plugin handles it, the FAQ says you do not need your own key file.

For a custom site, the IndexNow documentation sets out the steps:

• Create a key of 8 to 128 characters, using letters, numbers and dashes.
• Prove ownership by hosting a UTF-8 text file named after the key, containing the key, at the root of your site. A key file elsewhere is allowed, but then it only covers URLs under that folder, and the documentation "strongly recommends" the root.
• Send the notification. Send one URL with a simple GET request, or POST a JSON list of up to 10,000 URLs at once.

A single-URL notification looks like https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow?url=https://www.example.com/product.html&key=your-key, which the FAQ lists as the global endpoint.

A 200 response "only indicates that the search engine has received your URL". A 202 means the key is still being validated. A 403 means the key file was not found or does not match, a 422 means the URLs do not belong to the host, and a 429 means too many requests. Ideally your CMS or publishing workflow sends the notification automatically whenever a page is published, changed or removed. Our API integrations guide explains how such hooks work.

Bing's other URL submission options

Bing's URL submission page calls IndexNow "strongly recommended". It says manual URL submission and its URL and Content Submission APIs remain supported, but "may be deprecated in the future as IndexNow adoption expands". Unlike IndexNow, these reach Bing only. Manual submission in Webmaster Tools allows up to 10,000 URLs per domain per day, with the quota resetting at midnight UTC. Bing adds that "repeated manual submissions do not accelerate indexing". Manual submission suits a single urgent page; IndexNow suits everything else.

What Bing's guidelines ask for

The guidelines overlap heavily with Google's, and with our small business SEO guide. A few points are specific or stated more bluntly:

• Redirects. Use 301 redirects for permanent moves, and 302 only for very short changes, which Bing defines as "less than 2 days". Bing says to use redirects instead of canonical tags when a URL moves.
• Deleted content. Return a 404, use Bing's content removal tools where appropriate, and notify the change through IndexNow.
• Crawling and rendering. Do not block Bingbot in robots.txt or hide important content behind client-side rendering. Bing reminds owners that robots.txt controls crawling, not indexing; use noindex to keep a page out.
• Copilot directives. Bing says noarchive stops content being used in Copilot responses and grounding results, and nocache limits Copilot to the URL, title and snippet. Check your robots meta tags if you want to be cited.
• Clear pages. Each URL should have one clear topic, an accurate title and meta description, a logical heading structure, and facts stated on the page itself.

Frequently asked questions

Is Bing Webmaster Tools free?

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

Does Google support IndexNow?

Google is not among the search engines listed on IndexNow.org. For Google, use an XML sitemap, internal links and Search Console.

Will IndexNow get my pages indexed faster?

IndexNow tells participating search engines that a URL changed so they can prioritise crawling it. The IndexNow FAQ says submission does not guarantee indexing.

Do I still need a sitemap if I use IndexNow?

Yes. The IndexNow FAQ recommends using both: IndexNow for changes as they happen and the sitemap as the complete list of URLs.

Want your website set up for Bing and Google, with sitemaps and IndexNow handled automatically? See our website development service and all our services, or email [email protected].