How to get indexed by Bing (because ChatGPT search leans on it)

Most UK businesses have never logged into Bing Webmaster Tools because Bing sends them a small fraction of their search traffic. That was a reasonable position until ChatGPT search arrived. OpenAI names Bing among the search providers behind it, Copilot is Bing with a chat interface, and several 2026 analyses found that the great majority of pages ChatGPT cites are also in Bing's top results. A site that is well indexed in Google and poorly indexed in Bing is invisible in ChatGPT for reasons that have nothing to do with its content.

The good news is that Bing is easy to please and its tools are free. This takes an afternoon.

Step 1: Set up Bing Webmaster Tools

Go to bing.com/webmasters and sign in with a Microsoft, Google or Facebook account. Choose "Import from Google Search Console": it verifies your site and pulls in your sitemaps in one step. If you would rather verify manually, use the DNS or meta tag method. Add every property you care about (www and non-www resolve to one; add separate subdomains).

Step 2: Submit your sitemap and check coverage

Under Sitemaps, submit https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml (or your index sitemap). Give it a few days, then use the Site Explorer and URL Inspection tools to see which pages Bing has indexed and which it has not. Compare the count with Google. A large gap means Bing is not finding or not keeping your pages; Steps 4 and 5 usually explain why.

Step 3: Switch on IndexNow

IndexNow tells Bing (and Yandex, Naver and others) about new and changed URLs instantly. Options by platform:

• WordPress: Yoast, Rank Math and the official IndexNow plugin all support it; enable and forget.
• Cloudflare: turn on the Crawler Hints feature, which sends IndexNow notifications for you.
• Shopify, Wix, Squarespace: check the platform's SEO settings; several have added IndexNow support. If not, use the URL submission tool in Bing Webmaster Tools for key pages.
• Next.js or custom: generate an API key file at https://yourdomain.com/<key>.txt and send GET https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow?url=<encoded-url>&key=<key> whenever a page is published or updated. Bing Webmaster Tools also has a URL Submission API with a daily quota.

Step 4: Fix Bing-specific crawl problems

In Webmaster Tools, check Crawl Errors and the robots.txt tester. Common causes of thin Bing coverage: Bingbot blocked or rate limited by a CDN or security plugin (Bing's crawl is easy to mistake for a bot attack), a robots.txt that names Googlebot but leaves Bingbot under a restrictive User-agent: * block, and server errors under load. Use the Crawl Control settings to allow Bingbot more crawl during quiet hours rather than blocking it.

Step 5: Server-render what matters

Bing's rendering of JavaScript is limited, and it recommends server-side rendering or dynamic rendering for important content. Check your key pages in View Page Source; if prices, services or contact details are not in the raw HTML, fix that (our JavaScript guide covers each platform). This one fix helps Bing, ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude at once.

Step 6: Set up Bing Places

For a local business, Bing Places for Business is the Bing equivalent of Google Business Profile and feeds Copilot and Bing local results, which ChatGPT's search can draw on. Import your Google profile, then check categories, hours, photos and description match your canonical facts exactly.

Step 7: Use Bing's free tools while you are there

Webmaster Tools includes a site scan (a basic technical SEO crawl), keyword research with Bing volumes, and backlink data, all free. The site scan in particular catches missing titles, thin meta descriptions and broken links that affect every engine.

Step 8: Verify it in ChatGPT

After two to four weeks, ask ChatGPT with search enabled the questions from your prompt set. Note whether pages that were newly indexed in Bing start being cited. Also search Bing directly for your key queries; if you do not appear in Bing's top results, your odds in ChatGPT are low regardless of anything else.

How to know it worked

Bing's indexed page count is close to Google's. IndexNow shows submissions accepted. Bingbot appears in your logs with 200 responses. Your pages appear in Bing results for target queries and start to be cited in ChatGPT search and Copilot.

Common mistakes

• Never setting up Webmaster Tools because Bing "does not matter". It matters for ChatGPT and Copilot.
• A CDN rule that rate limits Bingbot into oblivion.
• Assuming Bing renders JavaScript like Google.
• Submitting a sitemap once and never checking coverage again.