The short answer: Bing Webmaster Tools is Microsoft's counterpart to Google Search Console, and you can set it up in minutes by importing your site from Search Console. It matters beyond Bing itself because Microsoft documents that Copilot looks things up through the Bing search service, and the tool now reports how often Copilot and Bing's AI answers cite your pages.
This is step 8 of our series on what a website needs to get customers. If you finished step 5, Google Search Console, most of the work here is already done.
What Bing Webmaster Tools does for a small business
Bing Webmaster Tools shows how Microsoft's search engine sees your website: which pages it has found, which searches show your site, what errors it ran into, and where you can submit your sitemap. It is the Microsoft side of the same job Search Console does for Google.
Many owners skip it because Bing is a smaller search engine. That reasoning is out of date. The same index now feeds Microsoft's AI experiences, and skipping the setup means you have no view into them.
Why Bing matters for Copilot and AI search
Bing matters for AI search because Microsoft's own documentation ties Copilot's web answers to Bing. Microsoft's page on web search in Microsoft Copilot and Copilot Chat explains that when web search is on, Copilot writes a short search query, sends it to the Bing search service, and uses the results to compose its answer. If Bing has not indexed your page, it cannot be one of those results.
Microsoft also launched an AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools in February 2026, as a public preview. It covers citations in Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and some partner integrations. And Bing's guidance on sitemaps in AI-powered search says sitemaps support both regular search and experiences like Copilot, while noting that no tool can guarantee when or how content appears in AI answers.
Other AI assistants use their own mix of sources, and they change. We only state what the companies document. The practical answer is the same for all of them: be indexed in both Google and Bing, write pages that answer questions directly (see step 3), and check the assistants yourself each month, as in step 9.
How to import your site from Google Search Console
Importing is the fastest way in: Bing reads your verified sites and their sitemaps from Search Console and verifies them automatically. Bing described the process when it introduced the import option.
Sign in to Bing Webmaster Tools
Use an account the business controls. As with Google, avoid making a contractor's personal account the only way in.
Choose to import from Google Search Console
Sign in to Google when asked and approve access. Bing can then read your list of verified sites and sitemaps.
Pick the sites to add
Select your site and confirm. Sitemaps you already submitted to Google come along.
Check back after a couple of days
Bing says traffic data can take up to 48 hours to appear for a newly verified site.
Bing keeps checking your ownership against Search Console. If you later remove that access, you will need to reconnect or verify another way, such as a meta tag or a DNS record. DNS verification needs access to your domain's DNS, which comes with any domain registered through our domain storefront.
How to submit your sitemap to Bing and keep it accurate
If you imported from Search Console, your sitemap is probably already there. If not, submit it in Bing Webmaster Tools, and also list it in your robots.txt file so search engines can find it on their own. Bing's sitemap guidance adds two details worth acting on:
- Keep the lastmod date honest. It should show when the page content actually changed, not when the sitemap file was generated.
- Do not bother with changefreq and priority. Bing says it ignores them.
Most WordPress SEO plugins and site builders handle this automatically. If yours does not, the storefront's SEO tool includes a sitemap, at $6.99 a month.
What IndexNow is and how to turn it on
IndexNow is a simple way to tell search engines the moment a page is added, changed or removed, instead of waiting for them to crawl again. According to the IndexNow documentation, engines that adopt it share the URLs you submit with each other. The IndexNow FAQ lists Amazon, Bing, Naver, Seznam.cz, Yandex and Yep as participants. Google is not on that list, so keep your Google sitemap in place.
How to turn it on and check it:
Use your platform's built-in option
The IndexNow FAQ says some WordPress SEO plugins support it, and that Cloudflare offers a native integration. If your site is on WordPress hosting (from $12.99 a month for WordPress Basic), check your SEO plugin's settings first.
Set it up by hand
Generate a key, place a small text file named with that key at the root of your site, and send changed URLs to an IndexNow endpoint, one at a time or up to 10,000 in one request. This is a job for whoever maintains your site's code.
Watch the results in Bing Webmaster Tools
Whichever method you use, Bing's IndexNow Insights shows how many submitted URLs were crawled and indexed, where the submissions came from (a plugin, Cloudflare or manual) and errors such as blocked or dead links.
Two limits to keep in mind. A successful submission only means the search engine received the URL; it does not guarantee the page will be crawled or indexed. And IndexNow does not replace a sitemap. The FAQ recommends using both: the sitemap lists everything, IndexNow flags what just changed. Microsoft's AI Performance announcement adds that IndexNow helps AI systems refer to the current version of a page.
How to use the AI Performance report
The AI Performance report tells you how often your pages are cited as sources in AI answers across Copilot and Bing. Microsoft's announcement describes these numbers:
| Metric | What it means | What to do with it |
|---|---|---|
| Total citations | Times your content was shown as a source in AI answers during the period | Track the trend month to month, not the exact number |
| Average cited pages | Average number of your unique pages cited per day | See whether more of your site is being used, or just one page |
| Grounding queries | A sample of the phrases the AI used to find your content | Compare them with the questions your pages answer; gaps are ideas for new content |
| Page-level citations | How often each URL was cited | Check whether your service and quote pages are cited, or only blog posts |
Microsoft is clear that citation counts do not show your placement inside an answer or your ranking. Treat the report as a sign of whether you are part of the conversation, and use it alongside the manual checks in step 9. Because it is a preview, expect its details to change.
How long Bing Webmaster Tools setup takes
If your site is already verified in Search Console, the import takes about 10 to 15 minutes. Adding IndexNow through a plugin takes another 15 minutes. A manual IndexNow setup is a developer task. After that, a monthly look takes about 10 minutes.
Common Bing Webmaster Tools mistakes
- Skipping Bing entirely because "nobody uses it," and losing sight of Copilot.
- Revoking Google access later without verifying Bing another way.
- Sitemaps with a lastmod date that changes every day even when the pages do not.
- Treating IndexNow as a guarantee. Thin or duplicate pages still may not be indexed.
- Running two IndexNow setups at once, for example a plugin and a CDN feature, without checking what each sends.
When to hire help with Bing and IndexNow
The import is a do-it-yourself job for almost anyone who finished step 5. Get help if your site is custom-built and needs IndexNow wired into the publishing process, or if pages that are indexed in Google are missing in Bing and you cannot see why.
Bing Webmaster Tools setup, IndexNow and a monthly review of the AI Performance report are things we can include in your written quote when we build or fix your site through our website design service. You get a written quote with a fixed price before we start: request one here.
Next in the series: step 9, the after-launch monthly checklist. Previous: step 7, Microsoft Clarity and GA4. To see which businesses AI assistants already mention in your field, go back to step 1, competitor research.