Short answer. To get indexed in Bing, add your site to Bing Webmaster Tools (you can import it from Google Search Console), submit your XML sitemap, and ping new or changed pages with IndexNow. AI matters here because Microsoft Copilot sends its web queries to Bing, and ChatGPT may draw on Bing among several providers.
Why AI search cares about Bing
An AI with web search on can only recommend pages its search provider knows about. Bing's weight differs by AI:
| AI | Role of Bing | Status |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Copilot | Copilot "generates a search query that it sends to the Bing search service" | Confirmed (Microsoft Learn) |
| ChatGPT | One of several providers. OpenAI says it uses third-party providers and has not said how much comes from Bing | Contested (OpenAI) |
| Gemini | None. Google's index | Confirmed (Google) |
| Claude | None reported. Brave Search is reported | Reported (TechCrunch) |
For ChatGPT, one vendor investigation, Peec AI in September 2026, reports that Bing appears mainly in its Deep Research mode alongside OpenAI's own index and other providers, and Peec calls several of its attributions unconfirmed (Peec AI). So we do not say ChatGPT uses Bing. We say being in Bing is the surest route to Copilot and one possible route to ChatGPT. The wider picture is in which search engine each AI uses.
Step by step
- Check whether you are already in Bing. Search
site:yourdomain.comin Bing. If nothing returns, Bing has not indexed you yet.
- Add your site to Bing Webmaster Tools. The quickest way is to import from Google Search Console: in Bing Webmaster Tools open My Sites, click Import, sign in to Google, and select your sites. Imported sites are verified automatically, and sitemaps already submitted in Search Console come across too (Bing Webmaster Blog). If you do not use Search Console, verify another way, such as a meta tag or a DNS record.
- Submit your sitemap. You can list the sitemap in robots.txt or submit it in Bing Webmaster Tools. Bing fetches a submitted sitemap right away and rechecks it at least once a day (Bing Webmaster Blog).
- Make the lastmod dates true. Bing says lastmod is a key freshness signal and should "reflect the true last modification time of the page content." It also says it ignores changefreq and priority (Bing Webmaster Blog). Do not bump the date on pages you did not change.
- Add IndexNow for changes. IndexNow is a ping that tells participating engines a URL was added, updated or deleted. Bing, Naver, Seznam.cz, Yandex and Yep take part (IndexNow). You make a key of 8 to 128 hexadecimal characters, host it as
{your-key}.txtat your site root, then send URLs. A JSON request can carry up to 10,000 at once (IndexNow documentation). Many CMS plugins do this for you.
- Do not rely on the ping. IndexNow's own documentation says an HTTP 200 response only means the search engine "has received your URL" (IndexNow documentation). It is a prompt to crawl, not a promise to index.
- Check the AI Performance report. Bing Webmaster Tools added AI Performance in public preview on 10 February 2026. It shows total citations, pages cited and the grounding queries behind them across Microsoft Copilot and AI summaries in Bing. Microsoft notes that it does not show ranking or authority (Bing Webmaster Blog).
If Bing still has not indexed a page
- Look for a robots.txt rule or a
noindextag that blocks the page. - Make sure the page is linked from your own site and listed in the sitemap.
- Resubmit after a real change, not repeatedly.
- Compare with Google: a page Google also skips often has a shared cause, such as thin content or a duplicate.
Google still matters
Bing does not replace Google. Google says a page must be indexed and eligible to appear in Search with a snippet to be a supporting link in AI Overviews and AI Mode (Google). Do both. Then see the full plan in how to get recommended by AI.
Frequently asked questions
How long does Bing take to index a new website? We found no time Bing commits to. Bing says it fetches a newly submitted sitemap immediately and rechecks it at least once a day (Bing Webmaster Blog), but fetching a sitemap is not the same as indexing every page in it.
Do I need Bing Webmaster Tools if my site is already in Google? Not strictly, since Bing can find sites on its own. Webmaster Tools lets you submit sitemaps, see what Bing has found, and use the AI Performance report. If your site is verified in Google Search Console, importing takes a few clicks.
Does IndexNow make ChatGPT cite my page? No source says so. IndexNow tells participating engines that a URL changed, and ChatGPT is not on the list on indexnow.org. No OpenAI statement links the two.
Does getting into Bing mean I will show up in Gemini or Claude? No. Gemini draws on Google's index, and Claude's web search is reported to use Brave Search. Bing covers Microsoft Copilot for certain, and ChatGPT only in part.
How do I know if Copilot is citing my pages? Use the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools, described in step 7.
Sources
Checked on 27 October 2026. The Bing sitemap post is dated 31 July 2025 and the AI Performance post 10 February 2026; the Microsoft Learn page was updated 18 August 2026. We could not read Microsoft's current Bingbot documentation, so this guide does not describe Bing's crawler.