How to submit your site to Bing Webmaster Tools (and why AI teams should)

Most marketing teams verified their site in Google Search Console years ago and never touched Bing. In 2026 that is a mistake, because Microsoft Copilot — embedded across Windows, Edge and Microsoft 365 — answers from Bing's index. If Bing cannot see you well, neither can Copilot.

Step 1 — Verify your site

Create a free Bing Webmaster Tools account. The fastest path is to import from Google Search Console, which carries your verification and sitemaps across automatically. If you prefer to verify manually, you have three options:

• Meta tag: add a <meta name="msvalidate.01" content="..."> tag to your home page head.
• XML file: upload BingSiteAuth.xml to your site root.
• DNS: add a CNAME record Bing provides.

In LumenEntity, the meta-tag route is a single environment variable — set your token and it renders in the document head site-wide.

Step 2 — Submit your sitemap

Under Sitemaps, submit the full URL to your sitemap.xml. Bing will schedule a crawl and start reporting coverage, discovered URLs and any fetch errors. Resubmit whenever you add a major section; day-to-day changes are better handled by IndexNow.

Step 3 — Turn on IndexNow

IndexNow is built into Bing Webmaster Tools. Once your key is hosted, submissions show up in the IndexNow report with timestamps and status. This is where a push-based publishing workflow pays off: publish, ping, and watch Bing fetch within minutes.

Step 4 — Read the signals

• Crawl information — is Bingbot reaching every important section?
• Index coverage — which URLs are indexed versus excluded, and why.
• Search performance — impressions and clicks from Bing, a leading indicator for Copilot exposure.
• SEO reports — Bing's own on-page recommendations, which map closely to what Copilot rewards.