Published 2026-09-05 · Last updated 2026-09-05
Bing Webmaster Tools is a free Microsoft service that tells Bing which pages your site has, shows how they perform, and now reports how often your pages are cited in AI answers. It matters far beyond Bing's own users because Microsoft says Bing powers Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Copilot, and AI tools like ChatGPT. If your site is not in Bing's index, several assistants have no way to find it.
Why care about Bing when Google has most of the market?
Bing's direct share is small. Statcounter's August 2026 figures for US desktop search put Google at 81.99%, Bing at 12.82%, Yahoo at 3.36%, and DuckDuckGo at 1.42%.
But Yahoo and DuckDuckGo are Bing-fed. In a June 2025 post, Microsoft's Bing Webmaster Blog said Bing powers a wide range of AI and search experiences, including Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Microsoft Start, and AI tools like ChatGPT and Inflection.ai. Add those together and the index behind that 12.82% is also the index behind a growing share of AI answers.
Microsoft's own Copilot sits on the same foundation. The company introduced the new Bing in February 2023 as a copilot for the web, running on an OpenAI model customized for search. The assistant changed names since then. The index under it did not.
What does Bing Webmaster Tools actually show you?
It has long shown crawl status, indexed pages, and search performance. In February 2026, Microsoft added an AI Performance report in public preview. It shows the total number of citations displayed as sources in AI-generated answers across Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing, and select partner integrations, plus the grounding queries the AI used to retrieve each page.
That last part is the useful one. A grounding query is the search the AI ran on its way to your page. If a page is cited for water heater replacement and never for emergency plumbing, you have learned which page is pulling its weight and which one needs work.
In June 2026, Microsoft added four more views: Intents, which includes a Local intent class, Topics, Citation Share, and Compare. For a service business, the Local intent view answers a plain question: are the AI answers that cite you coming from people looking for a company nearby, or from people researching a topic three states away?
What is IndexNow, and why does Microsoft push it?
IndexNow is a protocol that lets a website tell participating search engines the moment a page is added, updated, or deleted, instead of waiting for the next crawl. Participants include Microsoft Bing, Naver, Seznam.cz, Yandex, and Yep. In IndexNow's own words, search engines know immediately the URLs that have changed.
Microsoft's June 2025 post called IndexNow especially valuable in AI-driven search environments. The reason is timing. When you change your hours, add a service, or fix a phone number, an AI assistant working from a stale copy of your page repeats the old information until the index catches up. IndexNow shortens that gap.
What does the setup look like?
- Create a free Bing Webmaster Tools account and verify that you own the site.
- Submit your sitemap so Bing knows every page, not just the homepage.
- Turn on IndexNow. Many website platforms and plugins support it, and the IndexNow site lists the participating engines.
- Check that your robots.txt file does not block Bing's crawler or OpenAI's OAI-SearchBot.
- After a few weeks, open the AI Performance report and look at which pages earn citations and for which grounding queries.
- Use the Intents view to confirm that Local intent citations are landing on your service pages.
- Claim your Bing Places listing so the map side matches the site side.
None of this requires a developer for most sites. The verification and sitemap steps are one sitting. IndexNow is often a setting or a plugin. The reports are there to read once a month, the same way you would glance at a bank statement.
Why does Bing Places belong on the same list?
Bing Places is the map listing on the Bing side, the counterpart to a Google Business Profile. It matters more than Bing's headline share suggests for the same reason the index does: Bing holds 12.82% of US desktop search as of August 2026, and it also feeds Yahoo, DuckDuckGo, Copilot, and ChatGPT search. A business with a complete Google profile and no Bing listing is complete on one side and blank on the other.
The listing and the site should agree. Same business name, same phone number, same hours, same address. An assistant that finds two versions of the truth tends to hedge or pick one, and you do not control which.
What can you expect to see?
Be honest about the scale. Bing's direct share is about one search in eight on US desktops. The AI side is harder to measure, which is the whole point of the AI Performance report: before February 2026 there was no first-party number for how often an AI answer cited your page. Now there is, and it is free.
Treat the first month as a baseline. Note the citation count, the grounding queries, and the Local intent share. Then fix the pages that are absent, and check again. The report will tell you whether the fix worked, which is more than most marketing spend can say.
Common questions
Will this get me into Google's AI Overviews?
No. Google runs its own index and its own tools. Bing Webmaster Tools covers Bing, Copilot, the Bing-fed engines, and the AI tools Microsoft says Bing powers, which include ChatGPT.
Do I still need Google Search Console?
Yes. The two tools cover two different indexes. Most local traffic still starts on Google. The Bing side is the one most small businesses have never set up, which is why it is worth an afternoon.
Is IndexNow only for Bing?
No. IndexNow lists Microsoft Bing, Naver, Seznam.cz, Yandex, and Yep as participants. One notification reaches all of them.
