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MicrosoftSearch indexing

Bingbot

Bingbot is a crawler run by Microsoft. It indexes the web for Bing, which powers Microsoft Copilot.

What it does

Bingbot crawls pages to build the search index an AI platform answers from. Most operators use a separate user agent for each job, so you can usually allow or block one without affecting the others.

Crawlers that build search indexes used by AI platforms. Access supports discovery but does not guarantee a listing or citation.

User agent

Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; bingbot/2.0; +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm)

This is a full user agent string Bingbot sends. Version numbers change over time; match the Bingbot token rather than the whole string.

robots.txt

To block Bingbot, add this to the robots.txt at the root of your site:

User-agent: Bingbot Disallow: /

Blocking it keeps your pages out of that index, so the platform has less of your content to find and cite. Allowing it makes your pages eligible, not guaranteed, to appear in answers.

To allow it explicitly, for example after a broader rule blocks other crawlers:

User-agent: Bingbot Allow: /

Check what your robots.txt allows for Bingbot and the other AI crawlers in this directory.

Verifying requests

Microsoft publishes the IP addresses Bingbot uses. A request that claims to be Bingbot from any other address is not genuine.

In SurfacedBy

SurfacedBy's AI traffic tracking recognizes Bingbot in the user agent and checks each request against Microsoft's published addresses. Only requests that pass count as crawls; the rest are shown separately.

Operator documentation

Details on this page come from Microsoft's own documentation: blogs.bing.com/webmaster/2022/5/SEO-best-practice-for-subscription-based-and-paywall-content/.

Common Questions

What is Bingbot?
Bingbot is a crawler run by Microsoft. It indexes the web for Bing, which powers Microsoft Copilot.
How do I block Bingbot in robots.txt?
Add a group for Bingbot with "Disallow: /" to the robots.txt at the root of your site. Blocking it keeps your pages out of that index, so the platform has less of your content to find and cite. Allowing it makes your pages eligible, not guaranteed, to appear in answers.
How can I tell if a request is really Bingbot?
Microsoft publishes the IP addresses Bingbot uses. A request that claims to be Bingbot from any other address is not genuine.