- SEO
- Analytics and reporting
- Technical audit
Bing Webmaster Tools: the free way to track your site in Bing and Copilot
Good tool
Bing Webmaster Tools is the console Microsoft gives site owners to see their website the way Bing sees it. You can read the clicks, impressions and queries coming from the search engine, submit sitemaps and new pages, and spot crawling or indexing errors. On some points it goes further than Google’s equivalent: a site audit, keyword research, competitor backlinks and, more recently, a count of how often the site is cited in Copilot’s answers. Since it’s free, it is the second account most SEOs open after Google Search Console.
What is Bing Webmaster Tools?
You sign up with a Microsoft, Google or Facebook account. Then you add your site and prove you manage it, with a tag in the code, a file uploaded to the root or a DNS record; the fastest route is to import the sites already verified in Google Search Console, up to 100 at a time. The performance report shows clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position by page and by query over 24 months, with country and device filters. Around it sit the usual diagnostic tools (URL inspection, sitemap tracking, a robots.txt tester, Bingbot crawl rate settings, an explorer of the pages Bing knows about) and others Google doesn’t offer: Site Scan, an on-demand technical audit, keyword research with Bing’s own volumes, backlink analysis for a competing domain and recommendations ranked by priority. New URLs can be pushed instantly through IndexNow, the open protocol Microsoft launched with Yandex in October 2021.
The tool has been around since June 2009, first as Bing Webmaster Center. Microsoft rebuilt it from the ground up in 2020, then steered it toward conversational search: a built-in Copilot assistant to navigate the reports, followed in February 2026 by an AI Performance report in public preview, which counts the site’s citations in Copilot and Bing’s generated summaries. A Topics Portfolio tab, in beta since October 2026, groups those citations by broad theme and flags the queries where other sites get cited instead of yours. Bing Webmaster Tools is published by Microsoft, headquartered in Redmond, Washington. In Aira’s technical SEO survey published in 2024, 36% of the roughly 400 SEOs surveyed said they used it.
Bing Webmaster Tools at a glance
- Type
- Microsoft web service, nothing to install
- Launched
- 2009, as Bing Webmaster Center
- Publisher
- Microsoft
- Headquarters
- Redmond, Washington (United States)
- Data history
- 24 months
- Sign-in
- Microsoft, Google or Facebook account
- Engines covered
- Bing, Copilot and Bing’s AI summaries
- Free plan
- Yes, the tool is completely free
- Starting price
- Free
What is Bing Webmaster Tools used for?
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Measure your traffic from Bing
clicks, impressions, click-through rate and average position by page and by query over 24 months, filterable by country and device.
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Count your citations in Copilot
the AI Performance report shows how many times your pages are used as sources in Copilot and Bing’s AI summaries, and for which queries.
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Get your pages indexed faster
URL submission, instant notification through IndexNow and URL inspection to see how Bing crawled a page.
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Track your sitemaps
the list of submitted sitemaps, their processing status and the errors Bing ran into.
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Audit your site with Site Scan
an on-demand crawl that flags broken links, duplicate tags, missing metadata and other technical errors.
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Research keywords
search volumes observed on Bing, related queries and how they change over time.
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Analyze backlinks
referring domains and anchor text for your own site, and for a competitor’s too.
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Know what to fix first
recommendations ranked by importance, with the list of affected URLs ready to export.
Bing Webmaster Tools review
Good tool
Many people open it out of a sense of duty, the day they figure they really should register their site with Bing, and find a tool more generous than they expected. The import from Search Console handles sign-up in two minutes, and behind the basic console sit a technical audit, keyword research and backlink analysis that elsewhere come with a subscription. For a small site with no SEO budget, it’s a free toolbox you’d be wrong to ignore.
The data is only as good as its source: it comes from Bing, real rather than estimated, which makes it the reference for anything that happens on that search engine. You just have to keep it in proportion. Bing accounts for little of the traffic of most European sites, and keyword volumes and link profiles should be read as indications, not as a full inventory of the web. On a modest site, several reports also stay thin for lack of traffic.
Bing’s reach goes beyond its own results page, though: its index also powers Yahoo, DuckDuckGo and Ecosia, and it is one of the sources behind ChatGPT’s web search. A page that is well indexed in Bing Webmaster Tools is therefore visible on several engines at once, which justifies signing up even when Bing alone sends few visits.
The AI Performance report brings something new. It is one of the few to show, based on the platform’s own data, when a conversational engine cites your pages, and for which queries. It counts citations, not clicks, and doesn’t say where the page sits in the answer: it’s a signal, still in preview, but one Google doesn’t provide in as much detail.
The rest is typical of a vendor console: a clear but sometimes temperamental interface, sitemap statuses that change for no obvious reason, and support that is hard to reach when something goes wrong. Nothing that rules it out for a free tool, but don’t expect hand-holding.
Strengths
- Bing’s real data on clicks, impressions and queries, kept for 24 months.
- Completely free, with no paid plan and no time limit.
- A technical audit, keyword research and backlink analysis included, competitors’ sites too.
- A report on the site’s citations in Copilot and Bing’s AI summaries.
- IndexNow and URL submission to get new pages discovered quickly.
- Sign-up in a few minutes thanks to the import from Google Search Console.
Weaknesses
- A search engine that brings little traffic to most sites, which limits what the reports can tell you.
- Thinner data than Google Search Console on small sites.
- AI citations counted without clicks or the page’s position in the answer.
- Sitemap statuses and dashboards that are sometimes unstable.
- Slow support that is hard to reach when problems come up.
- Few connectors to other tools, apart from the API.
Is Bing Webmaster Tools worth it?
Yes, if you already use Google Search Console and want to round out the picture without spending a dime: sign-up takes a few minutes, IndexNow speeds up how fast your pages get picked up, and the AI Performance report tells you whether Copilot relies on your content. Even a site that gets few visits from Bing gains a technical audit and keyword research at no cost.
Not necessarily, if you plan to make it your main SEO tool. To track traffic from Google, nothing replaces Search Console, and for competitor research or a complete link inventory you need a paid tool such as Semrush or Ahrefs, whose data covers the whole market, at the cost of estimates.
The smart move: open both free consoles, Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, before paying for any subscription. Ahrefs Webmaster Tools adds a free audit and link report for your own site, and Microsoft Clarity, from the same publisher, shows what visitors do once they land on your pages.
How much does Bing Webmaster Tools cost?
Microsoft charges nothing: the account is free and every feature, the AI report included, is open to anyone who proves they manage the site. There is no premium plan, no trial and no credit card to enter.
| Plan | Per month | Included | Who it's for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | All reports, Site Scan, keywords, backlinks, AI Performance, IndexNow and the API | Any site owner, from a blog to a large company |
Source: official Bing Webmaster Tools page, which presents it as a set of free tools, checked on November 1, 2026.
- All you need is a Microsoft, Google or Facebook account and to verify you own the site.
- One account can manage up to 1,000 sites; the import from Google Search Console works in batches of 100.
- The advertising offer shown on the home page is for Microsoft Advertising, a separate paid service: it has nothing to do with Bing Webmaster Tools.
FAQ
Answers to questions about Bing Webmaster Tools
Is Bing Webmaster Tools free?
Yes, completely. Microsoft presents it as a set of free tools, with no paid plan. You only need a Microsoft, Google or Facebook account and to prove you manage the site.
Should I sign up if I already use Google Search Console?
It’s a good idea. Search Console tells you nothing about Bing or Copilot, and importing the sites already verified with Google makes sign-up almost instant.
What is IndexNow?
An open protocol launched in 2021 by Microsoft and Yandex that lets a site notify participating search engines as soon as a page is added, updated or deleted, instead of waiting for their next crawl. Google doesn’t take part: an IndexNow ping has no effect on indexing in Google, which still relies on sitemaps, internal links and Search Console. Most SEO plugins for WordPress, Yoast SEO and Rank Math included, send these notifications automatically.
Does the AI Performance report count visits from Copilot?
No. It shows how many times your pages are cited as sources in Copilot and Bing’s AI summaries, and for which queries, but not the clicks that follow or where the page sits in the answer.
How long is the data kept?
The performance report goes back 24 months. Beyond that, only regular exports, from the interface or through the API, keep the history.
Information checked on November 1, 2026