What is Bing Webmaster Tools?

Bing Webmaster Tools, explained

It covers similar ground to Search Console: search performance with clicks, impressions and queries, a URL inspection tool, sitemap submission, crawl information, backlink data and SEO reports. It's where you see how Bing, rather than Google, sees your site.

Setup is quick. Bing lets you import verified sites directly from Google Search Console: sign in, authorize access, choose sites and import, and they're verified automatically. Its announcement says you can import up to 100 sites at once and that traffic data can take up to 48 hours to appear, and that Bing periodically re-checks ownership through your Search Console connection. Other verification methods include DNS, an XML file and a meta tag.

Two things make it worth the ten minutes. Bing supports IndexNow, which lets you notify it immediately when URLs change. And Bing's index is used beyond Bing.com, so pages that aren't indexed in Bing miss more than one search box. For a startup, submitting a sitemap and checking for crawl errors once is most of the value, with a quick look each month after that.

Treat Bing's data as a second opinion. If Bing indexes a page Google won't, the problem is probably quality or duplication as Google sees it; if neither does, look at crawlability first.

Why it matters for founders

It's free, it takes minutes via import, and it covers a second search index. Most founders skip it and never check whether Bing can see them.

Example

You import your site from Search Console, submit your sitemap, and notice Bing reports 30 pages blocked by a robots rule meant only for staging. You fix the rule for both engines.

Common mistakes

• Never setting it up.
• Revoking Search Console access and losing verification.
• Ignoring crawl errors that Bing reports first.
• Assuming Google-only fixes cover Bing.