Learn about the difference between Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools in this article.
Both Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools are services that you can use to monitor the performance of your site in the search results. As suggested in the names, Bing Webmaster Tools is for the Bing search engine and Google Search Console is for the Google search engine. Both of these services look similar, but there are some key differences between them that you should know. This article explores the key differences between the two services in terms of the five main features that both of them provide.
Site Explorer
The site explorer in Bing Webmaster Tools is different to Google Search Console. The key differences between them are:
Compared to Google Search Console, the area to view the list of indexed URLs is more narrow in Bing Webmaster Tools.
You can only view the list of indexed URLs by each directory, unlike Google Search Console, which will show a list of every page that has been indexed in every directory that you can browse by clicking through pages.
Bing Webmaster Tools uses a dropdown menu to allow users to select the reasons why a page is not indexed, whilst Google Search Console doesn't. Instead, Google Search Console uses a menu with reasons at the bottom of the page.
Google Search Console has a feature to display how the number of impressions correlates with the number of indexed pages. Bing Webmaster Tools doesn't have this feature.
When viewing the number of clicks and impressions, Bing Webmaster Tools displays all the search queries that are causing the website to show up, even uncommon ones that are not searched very often. If someone types an uncommon query into Google that causes a site to show up, Google will still record it as an impression, but won't display that uncommon query. Google will only display the query that is causing a site to show up in the search results if it is a common one that is searched quite often.
The colours in the graph that show the number of clicks and impressions are switched around in Bing Webmaster Tools. In Google Search Console, the clicks are displayed on the graph in blue and the impressions are displayed in purple. In Bing Webmaster Tools, the clicks are displayed on the graph in purple and the impressions are displayed in blue.
Google Search Console has a separate page to view the crawling and indexing status of videos, whilst Bing Webmaster Tools doesn't have this feature.
Overall, the site explorer in Google Search Console is easier to use and more detailed. This is because of the features to view the crawling and indexing status of videos, the correlations between the number of indexed pages and impressions, and the wider area to view the list of indexed URLs. It is also quicker to view the indexed pages in Google Search Console as you can browse through all the directories at once instead of clicking through a narrow menu to show the pages by directory. Because Google Search Console only displays popular queries and does not display every single query that is causing a site to show up, there is a bit more privacy as someone might be typing queries with sensitive information that are causing a site to show up.
2. Sitemaps
Below are the key differences between the feature to submit sitemaps to Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Search Console.
Bing Webmaster Tools provides a dropdown menu to filter sitemaps by status (success, error, warning, processing) and another dropdown menu to filter sitemaps by status (index, feed). Google Search Console does not provide this dropdown menu.
Bing Webmaster Tools has a feature at the top of the page that counts the total known sitemaps, sitemaps with errors, sitemaps with warnings, and the total URLs discovered from all the sitemaps. Google Search Console does not have this feature.
Bing Webmaster Tools provides a list of all the sitemaps submitted, whilst Google Search Console only shows the most recent submission. Submitting a new sitemap will overwrite the old sitemap data.
Google Search Console provides additional information on the number of videos discovered from the sitemap file, whilst Bing Webmaster Tools does not have this feature.
Overall, Bing Webmaster Tools provides more detailed data on sitemaps. Although the data in Google Search Console is still sufficient, Bing Webmaster Tools does provide more details about the sitemaps submitted.
3. SEO Tools
Below are the key differences between the SEO tools in Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Search Console.
Both services have a feature to check where backlinks are coming from and the anchor text. However, Bing Webmaster Tools has a built-in keyword research tool, SEO report tool, and site scan, which Google Search Console does not have.
Built-in disavow links tool. Google Search Console does have this tool, but it is intentionally hidden because most websites do not need to use it and using it can be risky. Whilst both tools are used to instruct the search engine to ignore spammy or artificial links, a major difference between the disavow links tool on Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Search Console is that on Google Search Console, disavowing a link cannot be undone and is permanent. On Bing Webmaster Tools, it can be undone at any time.
Overall, both services provide similar features. Whilst Bing Webmaster Tools provides some extra built-in features, like a keyword research tool, SEO report tool, and a site scan, Google does already have tools that provide similar features, like Google Trends and PageSpeed Insights.
4. URL Inspection & Submission
Below are the key differences between the URL inspection and URL submissions in Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Search Console.
When clicking on the URL inspection, Bing Webmaster Tools displays a list of recently searched URLs below the URL field. In Google Search Console, it only displays a list of up to three recently searched URLs when clicking on it.
Google Search Console provides details about how it discovered the URL, including the referring page and sitemap, whilst Bing Webmaster Tools does not provide this data.
Bing Webmaster Tools also provides details on SEO issues at the bottom of the page when inspecting URLs. Although most of these issues will not prevent Bing from indexing a site, like a meta description that is too long, they are still worth fixing. For example, if the meta description is too long, Bing will not see all the text.
Bing Webmaster Tools limits the amount of URLs that can be submitted per day based on the age of the verified site. The absolute maximum number of URLs that can be submitted per day is 10,000, although it may be 100 for some sites. Google does not state a limit on the number of URLs you can submit per day. However, submitting URLs to Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Search Console does not guarantee that they will be indexed.
Overall, both services provide similar features, but Google Search Console provides slightly more details about the crawling of URLs.
5. Diagnostic Tools
Google provides its own diagnostic tools to analyse how mobile-friendly pages are and provide data about the page experience and Core Web Vitals. Bing does not have a feature that analyses this type of data.
Instead of a manual actions and security issues tab, Bing only provides a copyright removal notices tab, which lists URls that have been flagged and taken down due to a copyright takedown notice submitted by another individual or organisation. Even though Bing does not have manual actions, Bing can still penalise some sites that violate their webmaster guidelines by deindexing any violating pages. Since Bing does not crawl and index as much content as Google, manual actions won't be required as often.
Google Search Console definitely provides more diagnostic tools than Bing Webmaster Tools. This is because mobile-friendliness and Core Web Vitals are minor ranking factors.
Conclusion
Although both of these services are similar in that they allow you to monitor the performance of your website in the Bing and Google search results, there are some differences between these two services in terms of features and structure. This article explored how these two services differ in terms of the site explorer, sitemaps, SEO tools, URL inspection & submission, and diagnostic tools in detail.
