How to Submit a Sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools

Google gets most of the attention, but Bing handles a meaningful share of search traffic. Depending on your audience, it can account for 5-15% of organic visits. And Bing also powers Yahoo Search, DuckDuckGo (partially), and several other smaller engines. Submitting your sitemap to Bing means your pages get discovered by more than just one search engine.

If you haven't created a sitemap yet, start with our XML sitemap guide. If you've already submitted to Google, the process for Bing is similar but has a few differences worth knowing about. Here's everything you need.

Why submit to Bing

Three reasons.

Market share is bigger than you think. Bing's desktop market share in the US sits around 8-10%. In certain demographics -- older users, enterprise environments where Edge is the default browser -- it's higher. Ignoring Bing means ignoring real traffic.

Bing powers Yahoo and others. Yahoo Search results come from Bing's index. So does a portion of DuckDuckGo's results. Submitting your sitemap to Bing effectively covers multiple search engines at once.

Bing Webmaster Tools gives you data Google doesn't. Bing's toolset includes features like the URL Inspection tool, backlink data, and SEO reports that sometimes surface issues Google Search Console misses. It's a second opinion on your site's health.

Setting up Bing Webmaster Tools

Before you can submit a sitemap, you need a verified site in Bing Webmaster Tools.

Create an account

Go to bing.com/webmasters and sign in with a Microsoft, Google, or Facebook account. If you already have a Microsoft account, use that.

Add your site

You have two options:

Import from Google Search Console. If you've already verified your site in Google Search Console, Bing can import your sites automatically. Click "Import from GSC," authorize the connection, and select which sites to import. This is the fastest path -- it skips manual verification entirely and brings over your existing sitemap submissions.

Add manually. Enter your site URL (use the exact protocol and www/non-www version your site uses). Bing will ask you to verify ownership.

Verify ownership

For manual setup, Bing offers three verification methods:

XML file. Download a verification XML file and upload it to your site's root directory.
Meta tag. Add a <meta> tag to your homepage's <head> section.
CNAME record. Add a DNS CNAME record pointing to Bing's verification server.

The DNS method takes longest to propagate but is the most reliable for sites behind CDNs or with complex hosting setups.

Method 1: Submit via the dashboard

This is the most straightforward approach and gives you the best feedback.

Open Bing Webmaster Tools

Go to bing.com/webmasters and select your verified site.

Navigate to Sitemaps

In the left sidebar, click "Sitemaps" under the "Configure My Site" section. (The exact menu placement may shift as Bing updates its UI, but Sitemaps is always accessible from the main navigation.)

Enter your sitemap URL

In the "Submit a Sitemap" field, enter the full URL of your sitemap. For example: https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml. Unlike Google Search Console, you need to enter the complete URL including the domain.

If you use a sitemap index file, submit the index URL. Bing will discover and process all child sitemaps listed within it.

Click Submit

Bing will attempt to fetch and parse your sitemap. The initial status will show as pending.

Check the status

After processing (usually within a few hours), the Sitemaps page will show:

Success: The sitemap was fetched and URLs were discovered.
Error: Something went wrong. Common issues include 404 (file not found), XML parsing errors, or access denied.

You'll also see the number of URLs discovered and how many have been crawled so far.

Method 2: Submit via the API

Bing Webmaster Tools has a REST API that supports programmatic sitemap submission. This is useful if you manage many sites or want to automate submission as part of a deployment pipeline.

Get your API key

In Bing Webmaster Tools, go to Settings (the gear icon) and find your API key. You'll need this for authentication.

Submit the sitemap

Send a GET request to Bing's sitemap submission endpoint:

curl "https://ssl.bing.com/webmaster/api.svc/json/SubmitSitemap?siteUrl=https://yoursite.com&sitemapUrl=https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml&key=YOUR_API_KEY"

Replace YOUR_API_KEY with your actual API key. The response will be a JSON object confirming the submission.

You can also check sitemap status, retrieve crawl data, and manage other aspects of your site through the API. The Bing Webmaster API documentation covers all available endpoints.

Add it to your CI/CD pipeline

If you regenerate your sitemap during builds, add the API call as a post-deployment step. This notifies Bing immediately instead of waiting for its next scheduled crawl.

# Example: post-deploy script
curl -s "https://ssl.bing.com/webmaster/api.svc/json/SubmitSitemap?siteUrl=https://yoursite.com&sitemapUrl=https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml&key=$BING_API_KEY"

Method 3: Submit via robots.txt

You can declare your sitemap location in your robots.txt file. Bing reads robots.txt and will discover any sitemaps listed there.

Add this line to your robots.txt:

Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml

This line can go anywhere in the file. It's not tied to any specific User-agent block. You can list multiple sitemaps:

Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/sitemap.xml
Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/sitemap-blog.xml
Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/sitemap-products.xml

The robots.txt method is passive. Bing will pick up the sitemap the next time it crawls your robots.txt file, which may not be immediate. For faster results, combine this with the dashboard or API submission.

For more on how robots.txt and sitemaps work together, see robots.txt and sitemaps.

Method 4: IndexNow

IndexNow is an open protocol that Bing (along with Yandex, Seznam, and Naver) supports. It lets you notify search engines about URL changes in real time. While IndexNow is primarily for individual URL submission rather than sitemaps, it's worth understanding as part of your Bing strategy.

How IndexNow works

Instead of waiting for Bing to crawl your sitemap and discover changes, you push notifications directly. When you publish a new page, update content, or delete a page, you send a ping to the IndexNow API with the affected URLs.

Setting it up

Generate an API key at indexnow.org.
Place a key verification file at your site's root (e.g., https://yoursite.com/your-api-key.txt).
Send URL change notifications via HTTP:

curl "https://api.indexnow.org/IndexNow?url=https://yoursite.com/new-page&key=YOUR_KEY"

For bulk submissions (up to 10,000 URLs at once):

curl -X POST "https://api.indexnow.org/IndexNow" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "host": "yoursite.com",
    "key": "YOUR_KEY",
    "urlList": [
      "https://yoursite.com/page-1",
      "https://yoursite.com/page-2",
      "https://yoursite.com/page-3"
    ]
  }'

IndexNow doesn't replace sitemap submission. Think of it as a complement: your sitemap is the complete inventory, and IndexNow is the real-time notification layer.

IndexNow is supported by multiple engines

One IndexNow ping reaches Bing, Yandex, Seznam, and Naver simultaneously. You submit once and multiple search engines get notified. Google does not currently support IndexNow, so you still need to handle Google separately. See how to submit a sitemap to Google for that process.

Verifying your submission

After submitting, check back in Bing Webmaster Tools within 24-48 hours.

What to look for

Sitemap status. The Sitemaps page shows whether your sitemap was successfully fetched and parsed. If it shows errors, click through for details.

Discovered vs. crawled URLs. Bing will show how many URLs it found in your sitemap and how many it has actually crawled. A gap between these numbers is normal -- Bing doesn't crawl every URL immediately.

URL Inspection tool. For individual URLs, use Bing's URL Inspection tool to check whether a specific page has been crawled and indexed. Enter any URL from your sitemap and Bing will tell you its current status.

Crawl errors. Check the Site Scan or URL Inspection sections for crawl errors. If Bing can't access certain URLs from your sitemap, those pages won't be indexed regardless of the sitemap submission.

Troubleshooting common issues

"Sitemap could not be fetched"

Bing couldn't access your sitemap URL. Common causes:

The URL is wrong (typo, wrong protocol, wrong path).
Your server returned a non-200 status code.
Your robots.txt is blocking Bingbot from accessing the sitemap. Check that Disallow: /sitemap.xml isn't in your robots.txt.
Your server has IP-based blocking that's catching Bing's crawlers.

"Sitemap has errors"

The sitemap was fetched but couldn't be parsed correctly. Possible issues:

Invalid XML syntax (unclosed tags, invalid characters).
URLs in the sitemap return 4xx or 5xx errors.
The sitemap exceeds size limits (50,000 URLs or 50MB uncompressed per file).

Use a sitemap validator to check your XML before submitting. See sitemap errors and fixes for a full list of common problems.

URLs not appearing in Bing's index

Submission doesn't guarantee indexing. Bing evaluates each URL independently. Pages might not be indexed because:

They're blocked by robots.txt or noindex tags.
They have thin or duplicate content.
The site is new and hasn't built enough trust yet.
Bing simply hasn't gotten to them yet (crawl budget is limited).

If specific pages aren't being indexed after a few weeks, use the URL Inspection tool to check for issues, and consider submitting individual URLs manually through the "Submit URLs" feature in Bing Webmaster Tools.

Bing is slow to crawl

Bing typically crawls less aggressively than Google, especially for smaller sites. You can request a higher crawl rate in Bing Webmaster Tools under "Crawl Control," but this only increases the maximum -- it doesn't guarantee faster crawling. Using IndexNow to push notifications about new or updated URLs is the most effective way to speed things up.

How to check your sitemap status

Once submitted, you can monitor your sitemap's health in several ways. Bing Webmaster Tools shows the last fetch date, number of URLs discovered, and any errors. For broader sitemap health checks, see how to check a sitemap.

The recommended approach

Use all available methods:

robots.txt -- Add the Sitemap directive so Bing discovers it passively. Set it once.
Bing Webmaster Tools dashboard -- Submit once for the detailed reporting and error feedback.
API or IndexNow -- Automate notifications for real-time updates after deployments or content changes.

Submitting your sitemap to Bing takes five minutes. The traffic it unlocks -- across Bing, Yahoo, and other engines -- makes it well worth the effort.

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References

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