Bing Webmaster Tools: setup, sitemaps and IndexNow

Bing Webmaster Tools is the Microsoft service where you add your site, check how Bing crawls and indexes it, and send Bing your sitemap and new URLs. To set it up, sign in, add and verify your site, submit a sitemap, and turn on IndexNow. This article walks through each step, explains what the reports show, and covers the limits you need to know. It also shows how the pieces fit into a wider indexing routine.

What Bing Webmaster Tools does

Bing describes the tool as a way to get insights into your site's performance. Its toolbox page names four groups of features:

• Dashboard and reports. A summary of how the site performs and what needs attention, plus detailed reports on what brings visitors to the site.
• Diagnostic and research tools. Data on what people search for and which areas of your site to grow next.
• Notifications. Alerts and messages about your site.
• Public tools. A mobile-friendliness checker and a Verify Bingbot check. Both work without a sign-in.

The Verify Bingbot check tells you whether a request to your server comes from a real Bingbot IP address. Use it when your logs show a visitor that claims to be Bingbot.

Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Search Console do the same kind of job for two different search engines. They are separate accounts with separate data. A site that is verified in one is not verified in the other, unless you import it (see the next section).

Why Bing is worth a setup

Bing runs its own crawler and index, so Google data cannot tell you how Bing sees your site. A Bing Webmaster Tools account gives you the first-party view. IndexNow, covered below, also reaches other engines from one Bing-supported setup.

Add and verify your site

To use any report, you must prove you own the site. You have two routes.

Import from Google Search Console

If Google Search Console already verifies your site, import it. Bing documents the import in this order:

1. Open the My Sites page in Bing Webmaster Tools.
2. Select Import.
3. Sign in to Google Search Console and grant access.
4. Select the sites to import.

Bing verifies imported sites automatically. It rechecks ownership from time to time by syncing with your Search Console account. If you revoke that access, you must reconnect or verify the site another way.

The import has limits. You can import up to 100 sites at once, and you can repeat the process for more. The limit of 1,000 sites per Bing Webmaster Tools account still applies. Traffic data for a newly verified site can take up to 48 hours to appear.

Verify by hand

If you do not use Search Console, verify with one of the methods Bing lists:

• Domain Connect
• Upload an XML file
• Add a meta tag
• Update a DNS record

Pick the method you can change without a developer. A meta tag works when you control the page head. A DNS record works when you control the domain and does not depend on the page template. Keep the file, tag or record in place, so you can verify again if you need to.

Submit a sitemap

A sitemap tells Bing which URLs you want it to know about. Bing's sitemap guidance lists these steps:

1. Sign in and open your verified site.
2. Open the Sitemaps section and submit your XML sitemap.
3. Check the submission status, the last read date and any processing errors.

Bing tries to fetch a submitted sitemap at once. It usually rechecks the sitemap at least once a day.

Sitemap limits and rules

Use the limits Bing states in the same post:

Item	Limit or rule
URLs per sitemap file	Up to 50,000
Child sitemaps per index file	Up to 50,000
Very large sites	Use more than one index file
lastmod	An ISO 8601 date with a time. It must show the real last change of the page content.
changefreq and priority	Bing ignores them

Do not set lastmod to the time you generated the sitemap. Bing says the value must reflect the true last change of the page content. Change it only when the content changes.

Add the sitemap to robots.txt

Bing also reads the sitemap location from robots.txt. Add one line:

Sitemap: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

With this line, any crawler that reads robots.txt can find the file. You do not need to submit it again in each tool. For the Google side of the same task, see how to submit a sitemap to Google.

Use IndexNow for new and changed pages

A sitemap is a full list that Bing re-reads. IndexNow is a push: you tell the search engine about one change when it happens. Bing says IndexNow notifies multiple search engines of content changes as soon as they happen. Bing recommends that you use it alongside sitemaps. Sitemaps give full coverage. IndexNow reports single URLs that are added, updated or removed.

Set up IndexNow

The IndexNow documentation gives the steps:

1. Create a key. It has 8 to 128 characters. Use letters, digits and dashes.
2. Host a UTF-8 text file named <your-key>.txt at the site root. The file contains the key.
3. Send the changed URLs.

To send one URL, make a GET request to https://<searchengine>/indexnow?url=<url>&key=<key>. To send many, make a POST request to /indexnow with a JSON body. The body holds host, key, an optional keyLocation and a urlList. One POST can hold up to 10,000 URLs.

If you host the key file elsewhere on the same host, pass its place as keyLocation. A key file covers only the URLs at or under its own path.

IndexNow response codes

Code	Meaning
200	The search engine received the submission. This does not mean the page is indexed.
202	Received. Key validation is pending.
400	The format is invalid.
403	The key is not valid. The key file may be missing, or the key is not in it.
422	The URLs do not belong to the host, or the key does not match the schema.
429	Too many requests. The engine may flag them as spam.

A 200 code is not an index guarantee. It says only that the engine got your ping. Check the page in the Bing reports to see what happened next.

Which engines receive a ping

The protocol says participating engines share submitted URLs with each other. The participating engines list names Bing, Yandex, Seznam, Naver, Yep, the Internet Archive and Amazonbot. Google is not on the list. Submit to Google through Search Console and your sitemap. See how to get indexed by Google. Check the list before you promise a stakeholder coverage in any one engine. It can change.

Ping only URLs that changed. The documentation defines a submitted URL as one that has been added, updated or deleted. Do not resend your whole site on a timer.

Submit URLs through the API

The web interface is not the only route. Bing's API access page offers two ways to authenticate: OAuth 2.0, which Microsoft recommends, and an API key. To make a key:

1. Sign in to Bing Webmaster Tools.
2. Add and verify the site.
3. Open Settings, then API Access.
4. Accept the terms and select Generate API Key.

You can create only one key per user. The key belongs to the user, not to a site, so it works for all your verified sites. Keep it secret. If it leaks, delete it and generate a new one. Every application that used the old key stops working.

Bing's cURL post shows the batch endpoint, SubmitUrlBatch, which takes a siteUrl and a urlList. It also shows GetUrlSubmissionQuota, which returns your remaining daily quota. The post says cURL is for tests only. For production, use a server-side script.

Daily URL quota

Bing's announcement of the adaptive quota says you can submit up to 10,000 URLs per day, with no monthly quota. Bing sets the limit for each site from the verified age of the site in Bing Webmaster Tools, its impressions and other signals. The quota is therefore not the same for every site. To read your own number, open Submit URLs in the portal or call GetUrlSubmissionQuota. Do not plan around the 10,000 figure. A note added to the post in November 2025 says Microsoft now recommends IndexNow as the primary method for real-time URL submission.

Bing SEO: what to check in the reports

Use the features Bing names to answer three questions:

• Does Bing know the page? Check the sitemap status, the last read date and any processing errors.
• Does Bing report a problem? Read the dashboard and the notifications. Bing lists what needs attention there.
• Which queries bring visitors? Use the reports and the research tools to find topics to expand.

Fix the cause of a crawl error before you resubmit. A resubmitted URL that still returns an error changes nothing. A page can also be crawled and still not be indexed. A new ping does not fix that. For the causes on Google, see crawled, currently not indexed and discovered, currently not indexed.

Where Strategist fits

Strategist sends IndexNow pings for Bing and Yandex, and it reads Google index status through the URL Inspection API. One IndexNow call reaches Bing, Yandex and other partner engines. Strategist reads Bing index status and submits sitemaps through the Bing Webmaster API, and it paces bulk submissions to per-engine daily limits. The use case page Get pages indexed describes that workflow.

Next steps

• Read Google Indexing API: allowed uses, setup and limits before you use it for Google.
• Read IndexNow: how it works and which search engines use it for the protocol in more detail.
• Read how to get indexed by Google for the matching Google checklist.