Microsoft Copilot answers from Bing. Microsoft says Bing and Copilot "rely on the same core crawling, indexing, and ranking foundation as traditional search", so a page has to be crawled by Bingbot, indexed by Bing and clear enough to quote before Copilot can cite it. Copilot shows its sources, and Bing Webmaster Tools now reports which of your pages it cites.
To get cited: verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools, submit your sitemap, turn on IndexNow so Bing hears about changes at once, avoid NOARCHIVE and NOCACHE on pages you want quoted, claim your free Bing Places listing, and read the AI Performance report every month.
How does Copilot choose its sources?
Copilot does what other AI search tools do: it turns the question into searches, reads the results and writes an answer with links. Microsoft's own documentation puts it simply: "Copilot generates a search query that it sends to the Bing search service". The difference is the index behind it. Microsoft's Webmaster Guidelines describe how Bing "surfaces content across Bing search experiences, Copilot, and grounding API results", and say the same SEO work "also support[s] eligibility for AI-generated experiences, grounding results, and citations". When Microsoft launched Copilot Search in Bing on 4 April 2025, it said Copilot "cites its sources prominently" and lets users see "a list of every link used".
The guidelines then list what makes a page more likely to be picked for grounding (the step where AI fetches pages to base its answer on). In short:
- One topic per page. "URLs focused on a primary topic are more likely to be selected for grounding results."
- The answer near the top. "Place essential information near the top" and avoid long introductions.
- Facts that stand on their own. Pages "are more likely to be selected" when "facts and definitions are explicit" and the key information is on the page itself.
- Clear names. Use "clear and consistent naming for people, organizations, products, and locations".
- Text first. Images and video should support the text, not be "the sole source of information".
- Fresh and accurate. Update content when facts change, and tell Bing through IndexNow.
Microsoft also names what hurts: cloaking, thin or affiliate-only pages, and "Prompt Injection and AI Manipulation", meaning text written to steer the AI. Those can bring "reduced visibility or removal".
Bing is bigger in AI than its search share suggests
Bing had 5.29% of search engine referrals worldwide and 9.89% in the US in September 2026 (Statcounter). Those numbers undersell it, because Bing's index feeds AI products beyond Bing itself:
- Copilot. Microsoft's family of Copilots passed 150 million monthly active users in October 2025, and in January 2026 Microsoft said daily users of the Copilot app grew "nearly 3X year-over-year".
- ChatGPT. OpenAI's help center lists Microsoft among the outside search providers ChatGPT search can use, and Microsoft's Web IQ page says it "powers leading frontier AI assistants, including Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT".
- Apps built on Microsoft's grounding. Microsoft retired its old Bing Search APIs on 11 August 2025 and moved developers to "Grounding with Bing Search" for AI agents, so many business AI tools draw on the same index.
So Bing indexing is not a side project for "the 5% who use Bing". It is part of how several assistants see your site.
The AI Performance report: the one tool that shows AI citations
On 10 February 2026 Microsoft added AI Performance to Bing Webmaster Tools, in public preview. It covers "Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing, and select partner integrations". Google's Search Console counts AI impressions by page, country, date and device, but shows no queries, so this is the most detailed AI report any search engine offers site owners.
| What it shows | What it means | Added |
|---|---|---|
| Total citations | How often your pages were shown as sources in AI answers | Feb 2026 |
| Average cited pages | How many different pages of yours are cited per day | Feb 2026 |
| Grounding queries | "The key phrases the AI used when retrieving content" from your site. A sample, not the full list | Feb 2026 |
| Page-level citations | Which URLs are cited most | Feb 2026 |
| Intents and Topics | Grounding queries grouped into types (Informational, Commercial, Local and others) and themes | Jun 2026 |
| Citation Share | Your share of all citations shown "across all sites for that same grounding query" | Jun 2026 |
| Topics Portfolio (beta) | Your topics, and "Top Opportunity Queries" where other sites are cited and yours is not | Oct 2026 |
Read it with Microsoft's own warnings in mind: a citation "does not represent traffic, clicks, or user engagement", the data "is sampled", and Citation Share is not a ranking or a quality score.
How we use it: the grounding queries are the closest thing any search engine publishes to the hidden searches AI runs behind a question. They show how AI rewrites your buyers' words. Pages that are indexed but rarely cited are the first ones to rewrite, and the Opportunity Queries list shows where a competitor is cited and you are not. Even if few of your buyers use Copilot, that view of AI search is worth the ten minutes it takes to verify your site.
IndexNow: tell Bing the moment a page changes
IndexNow is a free, open way to tell search engines that a URL was added, changed or deleted, instead of waiting for them to recrawl. Microsoft's guidelines tie it to AI directly: quick notifications "reduce outdated or incorrect URL references in Copilot responses and grounding results".
- Make a key. 8 to 128 characters: letters, numbers and dashes.
- Host the key file at your site root, as a text file named after the key, to prove you own the site.
- Send changed URLs. One at a time by a simple web request, or up to 10,000 per request in a batch. Many CMSs and plugins do this for you.
- One ping reaches all. A submission is shared with every participating engine. Today that list is Bing, Yandex, Seznam, Naver, Yep, the Internet Archive and Amazonbot. Google is not on it.
IndexNow tells engines a page changed. It does not make them index it: "each engine makes its own decision about whether to index it."
NOARCHIVE, NOCACHE and other controls
| Control | What Microsoft says it does | Use it when |
|---|---|---|
| NOARCHIVE | "Prevents content from being used in Copilot responses and grounding results" | You want a page in Bing search but out of Copilot |
| NOCACHE | "Limits Copilot to using only the URL, title, and snippet" | Rarely. Microsoft says it reduces "citation depth and answer quality" |
| NOSNIPPET, data-nosnippet | Stop Bing showing captions and "may limit Copilot citation quality" | Only for text you truly need hidden |
| NOINDEX | Keeps the URL out of Bing search, Copilot and grounding results | Private or duplicate pages |
| robots.txt for Bingbot | "Controls crawl access, not indexing" | Keeping Bingbot out of folders that waste crawl time |
Microsoft does not run a separate AI crawler: Bingbot does the crawling for Bing and Copilot alike. So blocking Bingbot to "stop AI" also removes you from Bing. Our AI crawlers guide covers the other companies' bots.
Bing Places and local answers
For local businesses, Microsoft's February 2026 announcement was specific: registering with Bing Places for Business helps "key details such as address, hours, and contact information remain current and eligible for inclusion in AI-generated responses." Bing Places is free and now lives at bing.com/forbusiness. Microsoft says it is "available in limited markets", so check that yours is covered. Microsoft also says registering helps the accuracy of Bing Maps results.
Use the same name, address, phone, hours and categories as on your website and Google profile. When the details disagree, an assistant has to pick one, and it may pick the wrong one.
Checklist: getting cited by Copilot
- Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools.
- Submit your XML sitemap, with accurate lastmod dates.
- Check that Bingbot is allowed in robots.txt and through your firewall.
- Turn on IndexNow, through your CMS, plugin or CDN.
- Remove NOARCHIVE and NOCACHE from pages you want cited.
- Give each page one topic, with the answer near the top and the facts in plain text.
- Name your business, people, products and locations the same way everywhere.
- Claim Bing Places for Business, with the same details as your Google profile.
- Open AI Performance monthly: note grounding queries, cited pages and Opportunity Queries.
- Rewrite indexed pages that are rarely cited, then resubmit them with IndexNow.
- Ask Copilot your top buyer questions and save the sources it lists.
- Tag your links and ask every lead how they found you, because a citation is not a visit.
What we'd do for you
For every client we set up Bing Webmaster Tools, the sitemap and IndexNow, check that Bingbot gets through, claim or tidy Bing Places, and read the AI Performance report as part of the monthly work. Our plans track your buyers' questions on ChatGPT and Gemini (Google AI), and because ChatGPT can draw on Microsoft's search, Bing work helps there too. It starts with a free AI check. The audit is AED 1,950 in the UAE and GCC or USD 549 elsewhere (adjoltz.com/us). Monthly plans: Foundation AED 4,500 or USD 1,249, Growth AED 8,500 or USD 2,349, Authority AED 16,000 or USD 4,399. Month to month, no setup fee, and an unconditional 30-day money-back guarantee (rules).
What we don't promise
- That IndexNow gets a page indexed. It tells Bing a page changed; Bing decides what to index.
- That more citations in AI Performance mean more customers. Microsoft says a citation is not a click, and we report leads separately.
- That Bing Places is available in every country. Microsoft lists it as available in limited markets.
- Any tactic Microsoft lists as manipulation, such as hidden text aimed at the AI.