Ten minutes in Bing's tools, because that is the index some assistants read
Your customers do not use Bing. Several AI assistants have leaned on its index, and there is an import button that carries your Google verification straight across.
By Chen Deng · OxOne, Calgary AB
- Time10 minutes
- You needA verified Search Console
- ReachesThe index some assistants read
Sign in to Bing Webmaster Tools and use Import from Google Search Console. It verifies the site and submits the sitemap in one step. Then turn on IndexNow so new pages get announced instead of waited for.
Bing's search share is small enough that most owners have never opened its tools, and that was a defensible decision until assistants started answering questions.
Copilot is Bing. ChatGPT's web search has leaned on Bing's index. The vendors change these arrangements without announcing them, so the specific plumbing is not the point. The point is that a second index now feeds systems people ask questions of, and being absent from it is a real absence rather than a rounding error.
The import button
- Sign in to Bing Webmaster Tools with any account.
- Choose Import from Google Search Console, authorise, pick the property.
- It verifies your site and brings the sitemap across. That is the whole task.
If you skipped verifying Search Console, do that first, then this becomes three clicks instead of a second DNS record.
Then turn on IndexNow
IndexNow lets a site tell participating engines that a URL changed, rather than waiting to be crawled again. Bing and Yandex participate; Google has said it is testing it and does not commit to it.
On Cloudflare it is a single toggle: Caching, Configuration, Crawler Hints. It watches what changes and submits for you, no key file, no code. Off Cloudflare it is a key file at your root and a ping, and most CMS platforms have a plugin.
The effect is dull and worth having: a page you publish today is known about today rather than in eleven days.
What is actually in there
- Query data from a second engine, which does not perfectly overlap Google's and occasionally shows demand you had no idea existed.
- A free site scan that finds the ordinary technical faults — missing titles, duplicate descriptions, broken links — without a paid audit tool.
- A URL inspection and submit tool that is less stingy than Google's.
Why now rather than eventually
Assistant answers name three or four sources. That is a shorter list than page one of a search engine, and shortlists get decided partly on what is cheaply retrievable at the moment the question is asked. Ten minutes buys you eligibility in a place most of your competitors have not looked at since 2019.
Then go make the pages themselves worth quoting, which is the half that actually takes effort.
Every one of these came out of work we actually did. If you would rather not do it yourself, book a free 30-minute diagnostic and we will tell you which of these your business is losing money to.