Bing Webmaster Tools

First, it is free and frictionless. No credit card, no trial period, no upsells. You verify your site and the whole dashboard opens up. Microsoft now offers several verification paths: DNS TXT, meta tag, XML upload, and even import from Google Search Console. I pick DNS TXT because it is a single record that stays active forever — no need to re-verify every six months.

IndexNow is the hidden gem here. If your CMS supports it (or you add the API call yourself), Bing gets notified of URL changes in real time. I have seen pages indexed within two minutes of publishing after enabling IndexNow. Google does not have an equivalent. For a news site or a blog that updates hourly, this alone justifies the setup.

Sitemap submission works reliably. Bing does not always pick up sitemaps listed in your robots.txt or submitted via Google Search Console. I submit the same sitemap here and see faster crawling for new pages. The dashboard also shows how many URLs were submitted versus indexed, so you can spot if a rule is blocking large sections of the site.

The 'Index' report is underrated. It lists pages that Bingbot tried to crawl but could not access. I have caught 404s and soft 404s that Google Search Console did not flag because Googlebot had already cached an older version. The URL inspection tool lets you test live URLs and request immediate reindexing. Combined with [Microsoft Clarity](/microsoft-clarity/), which is another free Microsoft tool, you get a solid picture of how real users and the search engine see your site.

Finally, the tool provides basic performance data: clicks, impressions, and average position for queries that brought users from Bing. The numbers are small for most sites, but they are enough to spot trends — for example, a sudden drop in impressions after a site migration that you might not see in other analytics. I also use the keyword research tool to see what terms Bing associates with my pages; it sometimes surfaces long-tail phrases that Google ignores.

The interface looks like it was designed in 2010 and nobody told them to update. Navigation is clunky, reports take a few seconds to load, and you will occasionally get a 'Something went wrong' error that requires a refresh. It is not unusable, but it is frustrating when you are in a hurry.

Data completeness is the real limitation. Bing's market share in most countries is below 5%, so the query data is thin. For a low-traffic site, you might see zero impressions for months. I managed a site that got about 500 monthly visits from Bing, and the tool showed only 12 queries with data. You cannot run a meaningful keyword analysis from that sample. The date range options are also poor — you cannot compare two periods side by side, which makes performance analysis harder than it should be.

The crawl error reports, while useful, are not as detailed as what you get from [Screaming Frog](/screaming-frog/) after a full site crawl. Bing Webmaster Tools shows you the error URL and the status code, but not the referrer or the response headers. You have to go elsewhere to diagnose the full picture.

Bing's support for international sites and hreflang is limited. I have seen mixed results from submitting multi-language sitemaps. The tool does not validate hreflang annotations the way Google Search Console does. If you run a global site, you need to double-check everything with a third-party validator.

Another awkward point: no API for most reports. If you want to pull performance data or crawl stats into a dashboard, you are stuck exporting CSV files manually. The Google Search Console API is mature; Bing's equivalent is still basic and limited to certain endpoints. For scale work, this becomes a bottleneck.

I also find the site verification process a bit fragile when using the meta tag. I have had cases where the tag was on the page but Bing did not verify it for 24 hours. DNS TXT avoided that problem entirely. A colleague once imported Google Search Console verification and the settings did not carry over correctly — the site showed as verified but the sitemap upload failed. I would still recommend verifying manually.

On mobile, the site is essentially unusable. The dashboard elements do not resize properly. If you need to check something on a phone, you will end up zooming and scrolling horizontally. For a tool meant to be used in the field, that is a real oversight.

Google Search Console is the obvious alternative, and the one I would pick if I could only use one. It has more data, a better interface, and covers the search engine that drives the vast majority of organic traffic. The URL inspection tool is faster, the performance reports are richer, and the indexing coverage graphs are clearer. If your goal is to manage search presence on the web's dominant engine, start here. The two tools complement each other: I use Google Search Console daily and check Bing Webmaster Tools weekly.

Paid tools like [Ahrefs](/ahrefs/) and [Semrush](/semrush/) offer Bing-specific data in their rank tracking and site audit modules. They give you a broader competitive view — for example, you can see which Bing queries your competitors rank for that you do not. But they replace neither Bing Webmaster Tools nor Google Search Console because they lack the verified crawl-level insights that only the search engine can provide. They are additions, not substitutes.

Screaming Frog is useful for crawl diagnostics, but it is a separate category. It crawls your site as a generic bot, not as Bingbot specifically. If you find a crawl issue in Bing Webmaster Tools, you can use Screaming Frog to dig deeper, but you will not get the Bing-specific perspective without the official tool.

For sites that rely heavily on local search, [Brightlocal](/brightlocal/) can track Bing Local rankings, but again it is a supplement. Bing Webmaster Tools does not have a local-specific report.

My decision rule: If your site gets less than 10% of its organic traffic from Bing, you can safely check the tool once a month and focus on Google Search Console. If you see more than that — or if you publish time-sensitive content — the IndexNow benefit alone makes Bing Webmaster Tools worth the setup time. I would not skip it entirely, but I would prioritise it below Search Console and a good [SEO tool](/seo-tool/) like Ahrefs or Semrush.