AdIdxBot — Microsoft Ads crawler
AdIdxBot is the crawler used by Microsoft Advertising (Bing Ads) to crawl ads and the websites they link to. Microsoft documents it as distinct from bingbot, the organic search crawler, with its own user-agent token, so ad-related crawling can be recognised separately.
What this means
AdIdxBot is the crawler Microsoft Advertising uses to crawl advertisements and the websites those ads link to. Microsoft documents it as a separate user agent from bingbot, which handles organic search crawling.
For advertisers running Microsoft Ads, AdIdxBot hits on landing pages reflect ad-quality and ad-index checks rather than organic indexing. Recognising the token explains advertising-driven crawl activity.
How to verify and control it
AdIdxBot is verified using Microsoft's documented method for Bing crawlers: reverse DNS that resolves into search.msn.com with a matching forward lookup. To control it, target the adidxbot token specifically, separate from bingbot. The user agent is spoofable, so verify where authenticity matters.
- User-agent token: adidxbot
- Used by Microsoft Advertising for ads and landing pages
- Verify via reverse DNS to search.msn.com
How it appears in analytics and logs
A request carrying the adidxbot token is Microsoft Advertising crawling ads or their landing pages — a bot event tied to advertising, not organic Bing indexing and not a human visit.
Diagnostic use case
Recognise AdIdxBot hits as Microsoft Advertising checks on ads and landing pages, distinct from bingbot organic crawling, and control it via its token.
What WebmasterID can help detect
WebmasterID classifies AdIdxBot server-side as search/ads crawler activity and shows it separately from human traffic, so ad-landing-page check hits are visible without log parsing.
Common mistakes
- Confusing AdIdxBot ad checks with bingbot organic crawling.
- Blocking adidxbot without considering effects on Microsoft Ads.
- Trusting the user agent without reverse-DNS verification.
Privacy and accuracy notes
Identification uses the user agent plus Bing's reverse-DNS/IP verification — no human identity. WebmasterID records AdIdxBot as a bot event, separate from human analytics.
Related pages
- Bingbot — Microsoft Bing's web crawler
Bingbot is the crawler Microsoft Bing uses to discover and index web pages. It uses the bingbot robots.txt token and can be verified through Bing's reverse-DNS method and published IP ranges. Bing also powers results for other surfaces, so Bingbot coverage has reach beyond Bing.com.
- AdsBot-Google — Google Ads landing-page checker
AdsBot-Google is the Google crawler that checks the quality of web pages used as Google Ads landing pages. Google documents that AdsBot crawlers may ignore the global robots.txt wildcard group, so to control them you target the AdsBot-Google token explicitly.
- Bot intelligence
See search-engine and ads crawlers separated from human traffic.
Sources and verification notes
- Bing — Bingbot and crawler documentationDocuments Bing crawlers including the adidxbot advertising crawler.
Last reviewed 2026-06-24. Facts are checked against primary/official sources where available; uncertain specifics are marked “Data not yet verified” rather than guessed.