Bing Webmaster Tools Reports: Search Performance, Site Scan and More

Once your site is verified, Bing Webmaster Tools shows a long menu of tools and bing webmaster tools reports. Many site owners open the dashboard once, see a few charts and never return. That wastes useful evidence, because Bing keeps its own record of how it crawls, indexes and shows your pages, and that record can differ from what you see in Google.

This guide walks through the main reports in the order you are likely to need them: Search Performance, URL Inspection, Site Scan, recommendations, sitemap and crawl tools, and the newer AI Performance view. For each one you will learn what it is for, what to look at and what it does not tell you. If you have not verified your site yet, follow Set Up Bing Webmaster Tools and Verify Your Website first.

A caution that applies to every report: they describe how Bing sees your site. They do not promise that any page will be indexed, ranked or cited.

Before you begin

You need a verified site in Bing Webmaster Tools. Data starts to fill in after verification, so a brand-new property will look sparse. Pick a short list of URLs you care about, such as the home page, a key product or service page and a recent article, and keep the list next to you. The reports are read-only, so reading them carries little risk. Fixes that you make as a result (redirects, robots.txt, templates) do carry risk, so back up files before editing.

Bing updates its tools often, and some features are labeled preview or beta. Menu names and options in this guide follow Bing's own announcements; if your dashboard looks different, trust the dashboard.

What each of the Bing Webmaster Tools reports is for

Bing's own overview of Bing Webmaster Tools lists these capabilities:

Tool	What it is for
Search Performance	Impressions, clicks and average position across pages and keywords, with up to 16 months of data
Top Recommendations	Prioritized suggestions to improve site health and search visibility
URL Inspection	Indexing status, crawlability, HTTP response codes and blocked resources for one URL
Site Scan	Technical audits that look for broken links, duplicate tags and missing metadata
Sitemaps	Submit and monitor a sitemap; Bing says it processes sitemaps at least once every 24 hours
Site Explorer	Your site structure as Bing sees it, including indexed pages, crawl blocks and error responses
Robots.txt Tester	Check that your robots.txt file allows Bingbot to reach key content
Crawl Control	Schedule when Bingbot visits your site
Backlink insights	Referring domains, anchor text and link profiles
IndexNow and URL Submission	Notify Bing and other participating engines when content is added, updated or deleted
AI Performance	How often your pages are cited in AI-generated answers

Step-by-step instructions

Step 1: Read Search Performance

Open Search Performance and set a date range. Start with the total impressions and clicks, then look at pages and queries. Impressions tell you how often Bing showed a link to your site. Clicks tell you how often someone followed it. Average position is a summary, not a rank for every search.

Compare it with your Google data only for direction, not for exact agreement. They are different engines with different results and different counting rules. For the Google side, see Read the Search Console Performance Report. Bing offers up to 16 months of data, so export or note numbers you need to keep.

What success looks like: You know your top pages and queries in Bing and have noted the date range you used.

Step 2: Inspect your key URLs

Use URL Inspection and enter one URL at a time. Bing describes the tool as showing four things:

Index details. The index status, and when and where the URL was discovered, crawled and indexed, with the HTML and HTTP response details.
SEO details. Errors and warnings against approximately 15 SEO best practices, with the matching HTML and steps to fix them.
Markup details. Whether selected structured markup is present and readable.
Live check. A way to find out whether a page can be crawled, without requesting indexing. Bing notes this helps when a site may have been compromised and is sending different HTML to crawlers than to users.

If a page is not shown in Bing, the tool includes messages about why and what to do next. That is where to start, not a general SEO review. Compare with the Google view in URL Inspection Tool Live Test.

What success looks like: For each key URL you can say whether Bing has it indexed and what, if anything, is flagged.

Step 3: Run Site Scan

Site Scan runs a technical audit across your pages without third-party tools. Bing's overview says it detects broken links, duplicate tags and missing metadata. Open Site Scan, start a new scan and follow the options on the screen. Bing recommends running a first scan after you verify the site.

Read results as a work list. Sort by how serious an issue is and how many pages share it. Broken links and missing or duplicated titles are usually quick wins. Group repeated problems by template, since one template change can clear hundreds of pages. For a deeper process on links, use Find Broken Internal Links and Redirects Across Your Website, and fix duplicated or missing titles at the template level.

A scan is a snapshot. Run it again after you ship fixes to confirm they worked.

What success looks like: You have a prioritized list of site-wide issues and a date for the re-scan.

Step 4: Work through Top Recommendations

Top Recommendations gives prioritized, actionable suggestions to improve site health and search visibility. Treat each as a hypothesis. Check it against the page itself, because a generic recommendation can be wrong for your content. Fix the clear technical ones; skip the rest with a note on why.

What success looks like: Each recommendation is marked fixed, checked and rejected, or deferred.

Step 5: Check sitemaps, robots.txt and crawling

Open Sitemaps and confirm your sitemap is submitted and read. If it fails, the sitemap rules are the same ones that apply to Google. Use the Robots.txt Tester to confirm Bingbot can reach the pages that matter; see Robots.txt Blocking Google or Bing. Use Site Explorer to browse the structure Bing sees and spot crawl blocks and error responses. Crawl Control lets you schedule when Bingbot visits your site.

If you update content often, IndexNow lets participating search engines know about changes without waiting for a crawl. See Set Up IndexNow.

What success looks like: Sitemaps show as processed, and robots.txt does not block key pages from Bingbot.

Step 6: Read AI Performance with care

AI Performance, introduced in public preview in February 2026, shows how your content appears across Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and select partner integrations. The dashboard covers:

Total citations: how many times your pages were shown as sources in the period.
Average cited pages: the average number of unique pages cited per day.
Grounding queries: key phrases the AI used when retrieving content that it cited. Bing says this is a sample of overall citation activity.
Page-level citation activity: citation counts by URL.
Visibility trends over time.

Bing states that these figures do not indicate ranking, authority or the role of a page within an answer, and they reflect how often pages are cited, not page importance. Bing's blog lists newer additions to this area that were rolling out in preview, so check the current labels. Use the report to see which pages are used as sources and to find clear, indexed pages that are rarely cited. Do not use it as a score.

What success looks like: You can name the pages Bing cites, with the caveat that the data is a sample.

Step 7: Build a short routine

You do not need every report weekly. A practical routine: after launch or a migration, check Sitemaps, URL Inspection for key pages and Site Scan. Monthly, look at Search Performance, Top Recommendations and any new scan. Quarterly, review Robots.txt and Crawl Control settings. If you use the API for reporting, note that Microsoft's documentation page, last updated in August 2026, said the legacy SOAP and POX APIs would be retired on August 31, 2026, and pointed to the REST APIs.

What success looks like: A written routine with dates, owners and the reports to open.

Final verification checklist

The site is verified and shows Bing data.
Your top pages and queries are recorded with a date range.
Key URLs were inspected and any flags were reviewed.
A Site Scan has been run and a re-scan is scheduled.
Sitemaps are submitted and show as processed.
The Robots.txt Tester shows key pages are not blocked for Bingbot.
You understand which AI Performance numbers are samples.

Common mistakes to avoid

Assuming Google results apply to Bing. The engines crawl and index separately. Check both.
Treating recommendations as orders. Verify each against the page.
Fixing page by page when a template is at fault. Group issues by template.
Reading average position as rank. It is a summary across queries.
Using AI Performance as a ranking score. Bing says it does not show ranking or authority.
Never re-running Site Scan. A scan is a snapshot; re-scan after changes.
Blocking Bingbot by accident. Test robots.txt and check bot protection settings.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need Bing Webmaster Tools if I use Google Search Console?

They report on different search engines. Bing says it powers a range of search and AI experiences, so if Bing-based visibility matters to you, the reports are worth a look.

How far back does Search Performance go?

Bing says up to 16 months.

What does Site Scan check?

Bing's overview says it detects broken links, duplicate tags and missing metadata. Open the tool to see its current checks.

Is AI Performance a ranking report?

No. Bing says the figures do not indicate ranking, authority or the role of a page within an answer.

Can I get this data programmatically?

Bing has Webmaster APIs for rank and traffic stats, link details, keyword details and crawl stats, and for submitting URLs and sitemaps. Check the current Microsoft documentation before building on one.

Official references

Next step: See how Crawvix checks a website and capture a baseline once scanning opens. This guide provides technical information, not a guarantee of rankings, traffic or index inclusion.