Search Verification & Indexing

Bing Webmaster Tools

Also known as BWT · Bing Webmaster

Microsoft's free tool for verifying site ownership and monitoring how Bing crawls and indexes your pages.

What it is

Bing Webmaster Tools is Microsoft's equivalent of Google Search Console for the Bing index. Ownership is verified with a msvalidate.01 meta tag, an XML file, a DNS record, or by importing the property directly from Google Search Console.

Why it matters

ChatGPT Search and Microsoft Copilot are powered substantially by Bing's index, so being indexed and verified in Bing directly affects whether your content can be surfaced and cited by those AI answer engines. Bing also offers index coverage and URL submission features that accelerate discovery.

How to verify

View the page source of your homepage and search for a meta tag named msvalidate.01; its content attribute holds the verification key. You can also open Bing Webmaster Tools and confirm the site shows as verified in the dashboard.

How to fix

Add the <meta name="msvalidate.01" content="..."> tag to the <head> of every page, or use the one-click import from Google Search Console to copy your verified property. After verifying, submit your sitemap and use URL submission for priority pages.

In the checklist

This concept maps to a check in the GEO Score checklist.

Use the checklist

Related terms

Official references

External, opens in a new tab.

Put this into practice.

Work through every check by hand and turn it into a shareable GEO Score report — or scan your site automatically in seconds.