For years I skipped Bing Webmaster Tools. The reasoning was simple: most of the business owners I worked with never opened their Search Console despite repeated reminders, and a second dashboard that duplicated Google's seemed pointless.
I changed my mind, for two reasons. Microsoft's tool covers genuine blind spots in Search Console, particularly around inbound links and URL submission. And the Bing index now feeds surfaces that are no longer marginal, Copilot among them.
That is not a reason to oversell it. Bing's share of search is modest, and it varies enormously with who your visitors are and what device they use. So this article says that plainly first, then goes through what the tool adds — and what it does not replace.
How much Bing actually represents
Start with the number that decides everything else, and measure it for your own market rather than borrowing someone else's. Statcounter Global Stats publishes a free breakdown by country and by device; ten minutes there will tell you whether Bing deserves your attention.
To show why the device split matters, here are figures for France. According to Statcounter, in August 2026, across all devices, Google took 88.76% of searches there and Bing 5.13%. One caveat on method: Statcounter counts page views on a panel of sites carrying its script, not unique users or engine-declared queries. These are French numbers, not British or global ones.
| Engine | All devices | Desktop |
|---|---|---|
| 88.76% | 79.86% | |
| Bing | 5.13% | 10.92% |
| Yahoo! | 2.55% | 5.38% |
| Ecosia | 1.4% | 1.36% |
| Qwant | 0.83% | 0.98% |
| DuckDuckGo | 0.79% | 0.88% |
The device column is the interesting one. In that same French dataset, Bing roughly doubles its share once you look at desktop alone. The reason is not specific to France: Bing is the default engine in Edge and Windows search, and corporate computers still run overwhelmingly on Windows. So if your audience is mainly B2B and reaches you from a work machine, Bing is not a rounding error. If you sell to consumers on mobile, the opposite holds. Check both Statcounter views for your own country before deciding.
This matches what I have seen on the paid side. In several narrow B2B verticals, cost per click on Microsoft Advertising ran well below Google Ads, and even with a lower conversion rate the cost per enquiry stayed attractive. Organic search follows the same logic: less volume, less competition. The same question is worth asking about your paid search setup.
Inbound links: the Search Console blind spot
This was the original reason I opened an account. Google documents the limits of its Links report in writing: the official documentation states that the report shows a sample rather than an exhaustive list, that tables are capped at 1,000 rows, and that data is grouped by root domain. For a site with any history, you see a fraction of your link profile, with no indication of nofollow.
Bing offers a free inbound links report covering referring domains, target pages and anchor text. I compared the two on one of my own sites: the paid tool I used at the time credited 334 referring domains where Bing showed noticeably fewer. No crawler sees the whole web, two tools will never return the same figure, and what matters is the consistency of the series over time and the comparison with competitors — not the absolute value on any given day.
So I use it as a free cross-check: when a referring domain shows up there and not in my paid tool, I go and look. That is how you find links nobody told you about, including the ones you would rather not have. The routine behind that sits on my page about working on backlinks; a full backlink audit is the next step when the picture looks messy.
What the tool contains today
The current feature set is fairly complete. Microsoft lists the inventory in a Bing Webmaster blog post published on 17 June 2025: performance report (impressions, clicks, average position), URL inspection, recommendations, keyword research, inbound links, Site Explorer, sitemaps, Site Scan for technical auditing, a robots.txt tester, Bingbot crawl control, IndexNow integration and a built-in Copilot assistant.
IndexNow, the real technical differentiator
IndexNow is a notification protocol. Instead of waiting for a crawler, your site tells participating engines the moment a URL is created, updated or deleted. The official IndexNow FAQ explains that submissions are shared between participating engines — Bing, Naver, Seznam, Yandex, Yep and Amazon are listed — with a ceiling of 10,000 URLs per POST request and a recommendation to wait five minutes before resubmitting the same URL. Google does not take part. Know that before building a strategy on it.
A submission is a small JSON payload; in practice a plugin builds it for you.
{
"host": "www.example.com",
"key": "your-indexnow-key",
"urlList": [
"https://www.example.com/product-1/",
"https://www.example.com/product-2/"
]
}For a ten-page brochure site, this changes nothing. For an e-commerce catalogue whose prices and stock move daily, it is the only mainstream way to flag an update without waiting. On WordPress, setup means a plugin plus a key file at the root; budget a quarter of an hour. It does not excuse a broken sitemap or a tangled architecture: if you are unsure what is actually being picked up, start with an indexing check instead.
Site Scan, robots.txt tester and crawl control
Site Scan crawls your domain and surfaces the familiar problems: missing or duplicated title tags, error codes, redirect chains. It does not replace a professional crawler, but it is free and it clears the obvious ground. Crawl control lets you tell Bingbot which hours it may work — useful on fragile shared hosting, where a crawl spike slows the site for real visitors.
Visibility in AI-generated answers
This is the feature that most justifies opening an account today. On 10 February 2026 Microsoft announced the public preview of an AI Performance report. It shows how many times your site was cited as a source in AI-generated answers, the average number of pages cited per day, a sample of the queries behind those citations, and a breakdown by URL.
Two honest caveats. Microsoft states that the query data is a sample and that these metrics reflect neither the importance, nor the ranking, nor the placement of your pages. And the report says nothing about ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity: the surfaces announced are Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and unspecified partner integrations. It documents the Microsoft ecosystem, nothing more. Even so, it is the only free official window I know of onto citations in AI answers — useful evidence in a debate where most claims come without measurement.
What Bing Webmaster Tools does not replace
Be clear on the boundaries, because that is where disappointment comes from.
- It is not a substitute for Search Console. Google carries the large majority of search traffic on virtually every site I see, so Search Console stays the source of truth. Bing is a complement, never a replacement.
- It is not a competitive analysis tool. You only see the sites you have verified. Comparing your link profile against three competitors still requires a paid tool.
- It is not an analytics platform. It measures no conversions, no journeys, no revenue. Those belong in your analytics tool and your reporting dashboards.
- It is not a ranking guarantee. No webmaster tool, at Google or at Microsoft, lifts a site up the results. They observe; they do not rank.
My view: setup costs ten minutes and the tool is free, so the balance is favourable on nearly every project. But I still treat it as a secondary item, after serious work on organic search on the Google side. The order of priorities has not changed.
How to set it up properly
The procedure is short. Create an account with a Microsoft address, then import your sites directly from Google Search Console: the quickest route, since it reuses the ownership verification you already have. Otherwise, verify through an XML file at the root, a meta tag or a DNS record, exactly as at Google. Then submit your sitemap, enable IndexNow if your update frequency justifies it, and run a first Site Scan.
After that, a quarterly visit is enough in most cases. The inbound links report and the AI Performance report are the two screens that deserve a regular look. You will open the rest only when something prompts you to — the right level of attention for a secondary tool.
Common questions
Is Bing Webmaster Tools free?
Yes. It is entirely free and only requires a Microsoft account. Every function is included: performance report, inbound links, URL inspection, technical scan, IndexNow and keyword research. There is no paid tier and no quota tied to a subscription.
Should I install it if my audience is small or local?
It depends on the device mix of your visitors, not the size of your market. Bing is the default engine in Edge and Windows search, so its share runs higher on desktop than on mobile. A B2B site visited from work computers has more to gain than a consumer site read on phones. Check both Statcounter views for your own country first.
How does it differ from Search Console on inbound links?
Google's documentation states that its Links report shows a sample, capped at 1,000 rows per table, grouped by root domain and with no nofollow indication. Bing gives referring domains, target pages and anchor text for free, which makes a useful cross-check. Neither sees every link pointing at a site.
What is IndexNow, and does Google use it?
IndexNow lets a site notify participating engines the moment a URL is created, updated or deleted, instead of waiting for a crawler. Bing, Naver, Seznam, Yandex, Yep and Amazon take part and share submissions. Google does not, so IndexNow will not speed up how quickly Google picks up your changes.
Does the AI Performance report measure my visibility in ChatGPT?
No. The report, in public preview since February 2026, covers Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and partner integrations that are not listed publicly. It says nothing about ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity, and Microsoft notes that its query data is a sample.
How long does setup take?
Around fifteen minutes in most cases. Importing directly from Google Search Console reuses the ownership verification you have already done, so there is no second file or tag to place. After that, submit the sitemap and, if you publish often, enable IndexNow.