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.
What this means
Bingbot is Microsoft's primary search crawler. Bing results also feed other products and assistants, so being crawled and indexed by Bing has reach beyond the Bing search page. Use Bing Webmaster Tools for authoritative crawl and index data.
How to verify Bingbot
Microsoft documents a reverse-DNS verification method (the IP should resolve into search.msn.com, with a matching forward lookup) and publishes Bingbot IP ranges. Verify rather than trusting the user-agent string, which is commonly spoofed by scrapers.
- robots.txt token: bingbot
- Verify via reverse DNS to search.msn.com
- Or match against Bing's published IP ranges
robots.txt considerations
Bingbot honours robots.txt. Historically Bing supported a crawl-delay directive in robots.txt; check current Bing Webmaster Tools guidance for the supported way to influence crawl rate. To disallow Bingbot site-wide, target the bingbot token with Disallow: /.
How it appears in analytics and logs
Bingbot requests show Microsoft's crawler indexing your pages. Like Googlebot, the user agent is widely spoofed, so verify before trusting; steady crawling is the healthy state.
Diagnostic use case
Confirm Bing is crawling your site and verify suspicious Bingbot requests against Microsoft's verification method.
What WebmasterID can help detect
WebmasterID classifies Bingbot server-side as a search crawler and surfaces its activity separately from human traffic, so Bing crawl coverage is visible per page.
Common mistakes
- Ignoring Bing because of its smaller share — it feeds multiple surfaces.
- Trusting a Bingbot user agent without verification.
Privacy and accuracy notes
Identification uses the user agent plus reverse-DNS/IP verification — no human identity. WebmasterID records Bingbot as bot events, separate from human analytics.
Related pages
- Googlebot Smartphone — Google's mobile-first crawler
Googlebot Smartphone is the mobile user-agent variant of Googlebot and, under mobile-first indexing, Google's primary crawler for most sites. It uses the Googlebot robots.txt token and can be verified through reverse DNS and Google's published crawler IP ranges.
- robots.txt basics: what it does and what it cannot do
robots.txt is a plain-text file at your site root that tells compliant crawlers which paths they may request. This page covers the directives, how user-agent groups are matched, and the limits that trip people up: robots.txt is advisory, it does not hide pages from search, and it is not a security boundary.
- Spoofed and fake user agents: what to watch for
Spoofing a user agent is trivial — any client can claim to be Googlebot or a normal browser. This page explains why spoofing happens, the common fake-crawler patterns, and the verification methods that turn a claimed identity into a confirmed one.
- Bot intelligence
See search-engine crawlers separated from human traffic.
Sources and verification notes
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.