What Is Bing Webmaster Tools?

Date First Published: 14th December 2022

Topic: Web Design & Development

Subtopic: Web Services

Article Type: Computer Terms & Definitions

Difficulty: Medium

Difficulty Level: 5/10

CONTENTS

Features Of Bing Webmaster Tools
Verification

Learn more about what Bing Webmaster Tools is in this article.

Bing Webmaster Tools is a free service provided by Bing that allows website owners to monitor the overall performance of their website in the Bing search results. It can also be used to troubleshoot website issues, submit URLs, create sitemaps, and view backlink data. Bing Webmaster Tools was launched in 2009 and was originally known as Bing Webmaster Center.

Since Bing is the second largest search engine, it is important for website owners to also monitor the performance of their website on both Bing and Google. Similar to Google Search Console, website owners do not have to sign up for Bing Webmaster Tools to get their sites indexed by Bing, but it is a useful service for website owners to access exclusive information about their search presence on Bing.

Features Of Bing Webmaster Tools

Features of Bing Webmaster Tools include:

URL submission - Single or multiple URLs can be submitted for faster crawling and indexing. The maximum number of URLs that can be submitted per day is as much as 10,000 URLs.
Sitemap upload - This allows XML sitemaps to be submitted to Bing so that it can crawl and index the URLs.
Site activity - This shows an overview of website performance in the Bing search results, such as what queries are causing pages to come up, the position, and the number of clicks and impressions.
Crawl issues - This allows website owners to view issues with their websites that prevent them from getting indexed by Bing, such as 404 errors and unsupported content types.
robots.txt validator - Allows site owners to find out whether their robots.txt file is valid.
Backlink data - Allows site owners to access data about backlinks pointing to their website, including the linking site.
URL inspection tool - This tool detects issues affecting the indexing status of a URL.
Monitoring and resolving of malware, copyright removal notices, and spam issues.
URL block - Temporarily blocks URLs from being displayed in the search results and also clears Bing's cache for pages that have been recently updated.
Geo-targeting - Allows website owners to define a location-based audience for individual URLs or the whole website. After this is defined, Bing will serve the pages to the specified location.
Index explorer - Allows website owners to see which pages Bing has crawled along with the number of discovered URLs and how many appear in search. They can scroll through the directories to see the pages.
Disavow links, allowing website owners to provide Bing with signals that notify Bing of links they don’t trust or unnatural links.
Mobile-friendliness test tool.

Verification

Before website owners can use Bing Webmaster Tools, they must verify ownership of the site. This is because Bing Webmaster Tools gives users access to confidential information about the performance of a website and allows them to adjust how Bing crawls a website. Website owners can use the following verification methods, which include:

XML file - Website owners download the XML file, upload it to the root folder of their website, confirm successful upload by visiting the XML file in their web browser, and once they have uploaded the file, they can click on the 'verify' button. Once Bing detects the XML file, verification is complete. Website owners have to upload the file using FTP, so if they don’t have FTP access, that verification method is not suitable.
Meta tag - Website owners add a verification meta tag to the HTML of their homepage and once Bing detects this meta tag, verification is complete. Website owners must be able to access and edit the HTML of their page, so if they don’t have access to the source code, this verification method is not suitable.
Domain provider - Website owners sign into their domain name registrar and verify their sites by adding a DNS CNAME record.
WordPress - If website owners use WordPress, they can verify their site with a plugin, such as Yoast SEO and Rank Math. For Yoast SEO, they can go into their dashboard, click the webmaster tools tab, and copy and paste the Bing verification code. For Rank Math, they can go to the general settings tab, the webmaster tools setting, and copy and paste the meta tag into the Bing box.