Most small sites live in Google Search Console and never look at Bing. This guide is for bloggers, small business owners and agency staff who run a WordPress site and want a simple setup for Bing Webmaster Tools, a submitted sitemap and IndexNow.
Why bother with Bing Webmaster Tools
Bing Webmaster Tools is Microsoft’s free console for site owners. It shows how Bing crawls and indexes your site, which queries produce impressions and clicks, and which pages have problems. It works alongside Google Search Console rather than replacing it. If you already keep Search Console tidy, the Bing setup takes very little extra time, because you can import your verified sites instead of starting from scratch.
Step 1: Add and verify your site
According to Bing’s own webmaster blog, the basic flow is:
- Go to bing.com/webmasters and sign in with a Microsoft, Google or Facebook account.
- Choose “Add a Site” and enter your website URL.
- Verify ownership with one of the listed methods.
The verification options Bing lists are Domain Connect (recommended when your DNS provider supports it), uploading an XML verification file to the site root, adding a meta tag to the homepage head section, adding a DNS TXT record at your registrar, or importing a site already verified in Google Search Console.
The fastest route: import from Google Search Console
Bing’s 2019 announcement of the import feature describes these steps: open the My Sites page, click Import, sign in with the Google account that owns your Search Console properties, approve access, pick the sites you want and click Import. What comes across is your list of verified sites and their sitemaps. Bing’s post gives these details:
- Up to 100 sites can be imported at a time, and you can import from more than one Google account.
- The existing limit of 1,000 sites per Bing Webmaster Tools account still applies.
- Traffic data for a newly verified site can take up to 48 hours to appear.
- Bing periodically syncs with your Search Console account to re-check ownership. If you revoke that access, you must import again or verify another way, such as a meta tag or DNS record.
That last point matters for agencies. If a client later removes your Google account from their Search Console, your imported Bing access can lapse. A DNS or meta tag verification is less dependent on one person’s account. Note that this post dates from 2019; Bing’s newer 2025 post still lists importing as a supported option, but confirm button labels in your own account.
Step 2: Submit a sitemap
Bing recommends having a sitemap, either generated by your CMS or a plugin. You can reference it in robots.txt, submit it in the Sitemaps section of Bing Webmaster Tools, or both. Bing states that it processes submitted sitemaps at least once every 24 hours. If you imported your site from Search Console, any sitemaps listed there come with it, so check the Sitemaps report before adding a duplicate.
On WordPress, most SEO plugins and recent WordPress core already produce a sitemap at a predictable address; open it in your browser first, confirm it lists the pages you want indexed, then paste that exact URL into Bing. For background on what belongs in a sitemap, see our guide to understanding sitemaps.
Step 3: Learn the reports worth checking
Bing’s 2025 getting-started post highlights a handful of tools. For a small site these are enough:
| Report | What it shows | When to check it |
|---|---|---|
| Search Performance | Impressions, clicks and average position by page and query, with up to 16 months of data | Monthly, to spot pages and queries gaining or losing visibility |
| URL Inspection | Indexing status, crawlability, HTTP response codes and blocked resources for one URL | After publishing or fixing an important page |
| Site Explorer | Your site structure as Bing sees it, including indexed pages, crawl blocks and error responses | When pages seem missing or you changed URLs |
| Sitemaps | Which sitemaps Bing has processed | After submitting or changing a sitemap |
| IndexNow | Notifications of added, updated or deleted content sent to Bing and partners | To confirm your site is actually sending pings |
If you already review Google data, the Performance report will feel familiar. Our post on finding quick wins in the Search Console Performance report uses the same logic: look for pages with impressions but few clicks, then improve titles and descriptions.
What IndexNow is
IndexNow is an open protocol that lets a site tell participating search engines when a URL has been added, updated or deleted. The IndexNow documentation says that engines adopting the protocol agree to share submitted URLs with all the other participating engines, so one notification can reach several of them.
How it works
- A key file proves ownership. You host a UTF-8 text file containing your key. The documentation says the key should be 8 to 128 characters and recommends naming the file after the key, at the site root.
- Single URLs can be sent with a simple GET request that includes the URL and key.
- Batches are sent as a JSON POST with the host, key and a list of URLs, up to 10,000 URLs per post.
- Responses include 200 (received), 202 (received, key validation pending), 403 (invalid key) and 429 (too many requests). A 200 only means the engine received your submission.
Which engines support it
The IndexNow FAQ lists endpoints for Amazon, Bing, Naver, Seznam.cz, Yandex and Yep, plus a shared endpoint at api.indexnow.org. Google is not on that list, and neither the IndexNow documentation nor its FAQ mentions it. Do not count on IndexNow for Google; keep using Google Search Console and a sitemap for Google.
What it does not do
The FAQ is blunt: submitting a URL does not guarantee immediate indexing, and it only increases the likelihood that changes are crawled faster. It also says to submit only when content has changed and not to resubmit unchanged URLs. IndexNow is meant to complement an XML sitemap, which the FAQ recommends for ongoing discovery and long-term indexing.
Using IndexNow on WordPress
Option 1: the IndexNow plugin
The IndexNow plugin on WordPress.org is published by the Bing Webmaster team (author listed as bingwebmastertools). Its page lists more than 100,000 active installations and requires WordPress 5.3 or higher and PHP 5.6.20 or higher. According to its description, it:
- generates and hosts the API key on your site, so you do not register with each engine;
- detects when pages are created, updated or deleted and submits them in the background;
- skips pages marked noindex;
- lets you exclude URL paths with wildcard patterns, submit a URL manually and retry failed submissions.
To install it, go to Plugins > Add New, search for “IndexNow Plugin”, install and activate it, then open the IndexNow admin page and click “Let’s Get Started!”. Its FAQ notes that the dashboard shows only the most recent 20 successful and 20 failed submissions, and that deactivating the plugin removes the key integration and locally stored submission data. Read its recent reviews and support threads, and test it on a staging site first if your site is busy.
Option 2: an SEO plugin you already use
Some SEO plugins include their own submission feature. As one example, the Rank Math page on WordPress.org lists “Instant Indexing for Bing & Yandex” under its Pro features and discloses use of the IndexNow API in its External Services section. Other SEO plugins were not verified here, so check your plugin’s documentation. Run only one IndexNow sender at a time to avoid duplicate pings.
Common mistakes
- Resubmitting unchanged URLs repeatedly, which the IndexNow FAQ advises against.
- Assuming IndexNow replaces a sitemap. The documentation positions them as complements.
- Relying on Search Console import alone and losing access when someone’s permissions change.
- Expecting immediate indexing from a submission.
If you mostly care about Google, our post on getting a new website indexed by Google covers that side.
Key takeaways
- Import from Google Search Console is the quickest way to add and verify a site in Bing, but it depends on continued access.
- Submit a sitemap and reference it in robots.txt; Bing processes sitemaps at least every 24 hours.
- Check Search Performance, URL Inspection, Site Explorer, Sitemaps and IndexNow.
- IndexNow notifies participating engines of changes but does not guarantee indexing.
- On WordPress, use the official IndexNow plugin or a compatible SEO plugin, not both.
FAQ
Does Google use IndexNow?
Google is not listed among the participating engines in the IndexNow documentation or FAQ, so do not rely on IndexNow for Google. Use a sitemap and Google Search Console instead.
Do I need to register with each search engine for IndexNow?
The WordPress plugin description says you do not need to register or verify with each engine, because submissions go through the shared endpoint. Adding your site to Bing Webmaster Tools is still useful for the reports.
Is a sitemap still needed if I use IndexNow?
Yes. The IndexNow FAQ recommends an XML sitemap for ongoing discovery and long-term indexing, with IndexNow handling fast notice of recent changes.
How long until new data appears in Bing Webmaster Tools?
Bing’s import announcement says traffic data for newly verified sites can take up to 48 hours to appear.