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Bing is the engine behind ChatGPT and Copilot: why Bing Webmaster Tools matters more than you think
When ChatGPT browses, it searches on Bing. Copilot is built on the Bing index. If your website is not well indexed on Bing, for two of the most used AI engines you do not exist. What to do, in order.
Most companies have a property on Google Search Console and none on Bing Webmaster Tools. Until two years ago it was rational: Bing was worth a few percentage points of search. It no longer is, for a reason that has little to do with Bing's market share.
Who reads the Bing index
ChatGPT, when web search is on, queries Bing and reads the pages Bing returns. Microsoft Copilot is built entirely on the Bing index. With over 900 million weekly ChatGPT users and Copilot embedded in Windows, Edge and Microsoft 365, the Bing index has become the reading base of two of the most used assistants in the world. If a page is not indexed by Bing, those two engines cannot cite it, whatever its position on Google.
The point is that the Bing and Google indexes do not coincide. Websites perfectly visible on Google can have partial coverage on Bing, for trivial reasons: no sitemap submitted, more cautious crawling rules, pages discovered late.
What to do, in order
- Verify your property on Bing Webmaster Tools. It can be imported directly from Google Search Console, in a few minutes.
- Submit the sitemap and check the coverage report: which URLs are indexed, which excluded and why.
- Activate IndexNow. It is the protocol with which a website instantly notifies Bing (and participating engines) of every new or changed page. For a website whose content changes, it is the difference between hours and weeks.
- Check the crawlers. Many hosts and CDNs block AI bots by default (GPTBot, OAI-SearchBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot) and sometimes even Bingbot with aggressive anti-bot rules. Check robots.txt and the logs: a block here cancels everything else.
- Look after Bing Places for your locations: it is the equivalent of the Google Business Profile and feeds Copilot's local answers.
- LinkedIn. Microsoft owns LinkedIn and Copilot uses it more than the other engines: complete company page, consistent with the website, with aligned leadership.
An example from our assessments
A B2B supplier with a well-ranked website on Google was absent from ChatGPT's answers to category questions, while Gemini cited it. The source map showed the cause: the website had been rebuilt on a new platform with an anti-bot rule that blocked Bingbot and GPTBot; Bing had lost half the pages and ChatGPT, as a result, could not find them. Once the crawlers were unblocked and the sitemap submitted with IndexNow, the pages re-entered the index in two weeks and ChatGPT's answers in six.
Why we tell this story
Because it is the simplest and most neglected intervention in the whole discipline. It requires no new content and no third-party sources: it requires opening an account and checking three things. In our assessments it is among the first items in the plan in one case in three.
The GEO Assessment includes the technical check of crawlers and indexes; if you want a first check, the free audit already shows whether ChatGPT finds you or not.