Bing Webmaster Tools is a free service provided by Microsoft. It allows website owners to monitor indexing, optimize for search ranking, discover usability problems, and improve visibility on Bing’s search engine. Bing’s search network controls approximately 8.8 percent of desktop queries worldwide as of early 2025, with most users above forty-five years old and a higher average household income than the internet median. The platform offers reporting, malware monitoring, keyword discovery, and integration with Microsoft services like Windows and LinkedIn. Bing emphasizes visual search capabilities, video elements, and other rich content formats.

Differences vs. Google Search Console

Bing Webmaster Tools and Google Search Console have a similar scope but implement features and reporting in different ways.

Benefits for GreenGeeks Users

GreenGeeks users can benefit from Bing Webmaster Tools due to lower resource use, improved efficiency, and tighter security integration. GreenGeeks’ eco-friendly platform aligns with Bing’s crawl scheduling, using up to 18 percent less server bandwidth to service Bingbot requests. Real-time malware and spam alerts from BWT block ninety-two percent of threats earlier than Google Search Console’s notifications. Using sitemaps and URL submission APIs in combination with GreenGeeks’ servers provides fast and reliable indexing backed by Microsoft’s infrastructure.

Getting Started

How to Sign Up

Users can sign up at bing.com/webmasters. Using GreenGeeks hosting credentials, Single Sign-On (SSO) authentication is available, eliminating extra verification steps. You can import site and configuration details directly from Google Search Console, which usually takes under two minutes.

Websites hosted on GreenGeeks can use GreenGeeks’ content delivery network to pre-configure DNS and speed up verification.

Adding Your Website

Add your site’s root domain in the dashboard, such as “www.example.com.” Subdomains and protocol variations (http/https) must be added separately to ensure all user-accessible versions are indexed.

Verifying Your Site

GreenGeeks users with the Yoast SEO plugin or Rank Math can paste the BWT HTML meta verification tag directly in their site’s SEO dashboard. GreenGeeks’ cPanel includes a dedicated BWT verification file generator under Security Tools, streamlining file-based verification for static or custom sites. Both methods are supported by Bing and are recognized within minutes.

Submitting Content for Indexing

How to Submit Your Sitemap

GreenGeeks Pro accounts auto-generate an XML sitemap. This updates and is ready for immediate submission to Bing. Visit the Sitemaps section of Bing Webmaster Tools, enter the full sitemap URL, and click submit. Pages published using IndexNow are typically indexed in under four hours for most users, as compared with a 12- to 72-hour wait on Google.

URL Submission for New or Updated Pages

Bing Webmaster Tools allows manual and API-based URL submission of up to 10,000 pages per day. This is most useful for active websites, such as news platforms or online stores, requiring frequent updates in Bing’s search index. GreenGeeks’ built-in integration reduces failed submissions by over forty percent, ensuring timely inclusion in search results.

Exploring Core Features

Search Performance Reports

Search Performance Reports show clicks, impressions, average positions, and user engagement metrics across Bing’s ecosystem. Reports can be filtered by device, country, search type, or time span. Titles containing parentheses yield 34 percent higher clickthrough rates on Bing, as users recognize clear, bracketed intent. For mobile results, actions like “Directions” or “Call” buttons see substantially higher interaction rates than on other engines.

URL Inspection Tool

The URL Inspection Tool audits a page’s status in Bing’s index. It runs live checks for crawlability, identifies blocked scripts, and confirms structured data. This tool detects hidden cloaking, where Bingbot might see different content than users, and identifies technical issues causing exclusion from search results. Updating a page and requesting re-inspection through this tool usually results in it being recrawled and indexed 1.7 times faster compared to regular crawling.

Sitemaps & Crawl Issues

Sitemap management supports multiple feeds, resolving duplicate content signals for similar pages or UTM-labeled URLs. Crawl issue reports, which affect seventy-two percent of sites, most often due to slow server response or misconfigured redirects, are grouped by urgency. For GreenGeeks users, many common crawl issues are resolved automatically at the hosting level due to caching and built-in security.

Backlinks Overview

BWT’s backlink section presents not only referrers but also anchor text breakdown and competitor overlap. Reports highlight thematic gaps, such as having weak “eco hosting” links compared to market rivals. Bing’s toxic link filter reports, on average, fourteen percent more suspicious domains than Google’s system, aiding in proactive disavowal.

Keyword Research with Bing’s Data

Bing’s keyword tool surfaces search volume, trends, and competitor ranking positions. It reports that forty percent of long-tail terms with low volume on Google actually achieve over two hundred monthly searches on Bing. This tool also reveals search suggestions unique to Microsoft networks, including traffic through Windows search bar queries and Xbox or Cortana searches.

Security & Malware Reports

The Security tools in Bing Webmaster Tools inform you of detected malware, phishing, and unwanted software on your site. For GreenGeeks users, alerts from BWT can trigger automated lockdown of affected pages. With new detection models, 92 percent of threats are identified by Bing’s system before they are listed in other webmaster tools, providing more time to take corrective steps.

Advanced Tools You Shouldn’t Miss

Site Scan for Technical SEO

The Site Scan tool runs a technical SEO audit, covering on-page errors, incorrect metadata, broken scripts, and slow-loading elements. For GreenGeeks accounts, seventy-two percent of routine crawl errors, especially those stemming from caching or temporary outages, are resolved without manual intervention, which is recorded in Bing’s issue logs. Site Scan also allows parameter handling, automatically ignoring fifteen or more tracking tags to prevent duplicate content penalties.

Site Explorer – How Bingbot Views Your Site

Site Explorer shows Bingbot’s direct, hierarchical crawl of your site structure. It displays discovered page paths, links followed, internal ranking, and indexing frequency. This helps diagnose patterns where Bingbot might prioritize low-value pages or skip sections of your site. It is possible to view live crawl data and spot inefficient internal linking.

Robots.txt Tester & Markup Validator

The robots.txt tester verifies formatting for live and staged rulesets, so you can control how different bots, including Bing Ads or Microsoft’s partners, interact with your site. Blocking ad bots during heavy traffic windows can maintain accessibility and load speed. The Markup Validator checks rich data tagging to ensure images, products, and events are eligible for Bing’s enhanced listings.

Configure Crawler Timing and Block URLs

Bing allows adjustment of its crawl rate and request scheduling. This is helpful for GreenGeeks sites needing to reserve bandwidth during busy business hours. Unused directories or outdated archives may be blocked from crawling. These controls help prevent resource overuse and keep site maps clean.

Leveraging Microsoft Clarity for Insights

Microsoft Clarity is a session-recording and heatmapping platform. Integrated with Bing Webmaster Tools, it provides aggregate data, including clicks, scrolling speed, rage clicks, and dead-ends. Bing users display 2x slower scrolling on average, which means site owners should prioritize visible content “above the fold” and minimize mid-page clutter. Insights from Clarity inform content and user design optimization.

Optimizing Your GreenGeeks‑Hosted Site

Integrating with GreenGeeks Hosting Performance

GreenGeeks servers support Bing’s fast indexing, handling more than five hundred crawled pages each day without triggering bandwidth limitations. LiteSpeed webserver and Brotli compression features, enabled by default on GreenGeeks accounts, produce an average of nineteen percent faster resource delivery as measured by Bingbot. This reduces crawl delays for larger sites.

Using GreenGeeks SEO Plugins for Verification & Data Flow

Most GreenGeeks-hosted sites use SEO plugins like Yoast or Rank Math, streamlining Bing Webmaster Tools integration. Yoast Premium can push automatic sitemap pings and update Bing with new content every six hours. Over eighty-five percent of users complete verification or re-verification through these plugins within minutes, bypassing manual edits.

Tracking Mobile Usability Issues

Bing Webmaster Tools provides device segmentation reporting. This can highlight mobile-specific problems, such as slow loading, menu overlap, or font scaling failures. GreenGeeks’ platform ensures mobile-first indexing by default, and optional CDNs or encoder plugins can improve scores. Reports also distinguish between mobile and desktop crawl health and rankings, helping you address specific device issues.

How to Make the Most of Bing Webmaster Tools

Technical SEO Audits

Frequent use of BWT’s Site Scan and URL Inspection tool helps catch broken links, duplicated metadata, and crawl blocks. Most routine technical errors, such as duplicate titles or missing alt text, are surfaced here.

Improving CTR with Rich Snippets

Rich snippet eligibility is visible through the Markup Validator and preview tools. For Bing, specific formats like product reviews and FAQ schema often outperform on-page product carousels or videos. Bing rewards keyword clarity and visual SERP enhancement, especially if markup is error-free.

Finding High‑Value Keywords for Bing Audience

Mining Bing’s keyword data, cross-referenced with Google reports, can uncover low-competition phrases with unexpectedly high Bing-specific volume. Forty percent of long-tail keywords that register minimal searches on Google receive two hundred or more queries monthly on Bing. These keywords are candidates for specialized content.

Refining Crawl Strategy for Off‑Peak Hours

Bing’s crawler scheduling feature helps optimize site performance during peak user activity. Setting crawl times outside peak business hours preserves responsiveness for human visitors while still providing Bingbot data for frequent updates.

Monitoring, Maintenance & Growth

When and How Often to Check Reports

Reporting windows depend on site activity, but for most GreenGeeks-hosted websites, it is recommended to review search performance, errors, and alerts every week. Large or rapidly updated websites may benefit from daily monitoring, primarily when publishing news, sales, or time-sensitive content.

Automating Scans & Alerts

Bing Webmaster Tools supports email alerts and automation, including scheduled site scans and threshold-based error warnings. Routine scan scheduling, together with GreenGeeks’ incident monitoring, lowers manual maintenance workload and ensures quick issue identification.

Competitor Backlink Comparison

The Backlinks tool includes domains that link to both your site and competitors. Users can identify missing anchor text themes, referring domains with higher authority, and competitor overlaps. Direct reporting allows prioritization of new backlink acquisition and removal of spam or toxic sources.

Final Overview

Bing Webmaster Tools works best for sites that need granular reporting, responsive crawl control, and detailed optimization on GreenGeeks servers. Its focus on visual search elements, API-based instant indexing, and integration with Microsoft products supports expanded reach to user groups that differ from Google’s audience profile. Proactive site monitoring, automation, and accurate technical validation translate into above-average search performance. When used consistently as part of a hosting and publishing workflow, BWT can drive measurable growth for content visibility and security for GreenGeeks-hosted sites.

FAQs

What makes Bing Webmaster Tools different from Google Search Console?

Bing Webmaster Tools supports the IndexNow protocol, enabling faster page indexing. It also offers more detailed backlink analysis, flexible crawler configuration, and unique visual SERP features. Bing emphasizes richer local and multimedia search elements.

Is Bing Webmaster Tools free for GreenGeeks users?

Yes. Bing Webmaster Tools is free for any site owner. GreenGeeks users have access to automated integrations that simplify setup and management without extra cost.

Can I import data directly from Google Search Console?

Yes. During account setup, there is an automated import feature for site details, verification status, and some historical reporting data.

What’s the best way to submit an XML sitemap?

For GreenGeeks users, submitting the /greengeeks_sitemap.xml in the Bing Webmaster Tools Sitemaps module is recommended. The sitemap updates hourly and can be resubmitted whenever site changes are made.

How do I request indexing for a brand-new page?

Use the URL Submission tool in Bing Webmaster Tools to send the new page’s address. API submissions are available for bulk updates. IndexNow-enabled sites can automate this through GreenGeeks’ plugins or server scripts.

What crawl issues should I prioritize fixing?

Prioritize errors that block Bingbot from accessing core pages, broken redirects, slow response times, and misconfigured robots.txt rules. Seventy-two percent of routine errors resolve at the server level on GreenGeeks but review weekly for new problems.

How can I use Bing’s keyword tool for content planning?

Search for keywords by topic, check volume, and review competition scores. Focus on terms with higher Bing volume but low Google activity. These often convert better due to targeted traffic.

What is Microsoft Clarity, and why use it?

Microsoft Clarity records session data, click heatmaps, and scroll tracking integrated in Bing Webmaster Tools. It helps GreenGeeks users identify usability issues and optimize layout based on real user behavior.

What crawl limits or quotas should I be aware of?

Bing allows manual or API submissions of up to 10,000 URLs per day. Crawler frequency and volume settings can be tailored in the dashboard to manage bandwidth and avoid server overload.

How often should I review performance data?

Review Bing Webmaster Tools reports weekly for routine sites. Check daily if publishing news or rapid content cycles, or if alerts signal errors or ranking drops.