What is Bing?

Bing is the second-largest search engine worldwide, holding 4.47% of the global search market to Google's 91.31%, with Yahoo! at 1.24% and DuckDuckGo at 0.65%, per StatCounter (July 2026). That looks like a rounding error. It isn't, because Bing's index reaches well beyond bing.com.

For searchers, Bing covers web, image, video, and map results. Bing also keeps a search history tied to your Microsoft account, which you can view and clear on Microsoft's privacy dashboard, and its My saves feature lets you save image, video, place, and shopping results to revisit later from any device you're signed in on.

Bing vs. Google

For a site owner, the practical differences come down to reach, defaults, and ranking systems:

• Reach: Google handles 91.31% of worldwide searches to Bing's 4.47% (StatCounter Global Stats, all platforms, July 2026).
• Defaults: Bing ships as the default in Microsoft Edge and Windows search, so it gets steady traffic from people who never change a browser setting.
• Rankings: Bing and Google use different ranking systems, so the same page can rank differently on each. Compare your impressions, positions, and queries in each engine's webmaster tools rather than assuming Bing is easier.

Why Bing matters for SEO

Bing's own share understates its reach, because its index also feeds other engines. DuckDuckGo says most of its traditional search results currently come from Bing, and Yahoo's help pages say all algorithmic search results on Yahoo Search are provided by Microsoft Bing. A page that ranks well on Bing can surface on those engines too, so ignoring Bing forfeits more traffic than its own 4.47% share suggests.

Bing, Copilot, and AI search

Bing added AI chat in February 2023, when Microsoft launched Bing Chat, an OpenAI-powered chatbot integrated directly into the search engine. Microsoft renamed it Microsoft Copilot in November 2023, and on April 4, 2025 it introduced Copilot Search in Bing, accessible from bing.com, which blends traditional and generative search and answers queries with summaries that cite their sources. The fundamentals hold either way: your content has to be in Bing's index before any Bing surface, classic or AI, can send you a visitor.

How to get your site indexed on Bing

Bing's crawler, Bingbot, will find a public site on its own eventually. Three steps speed it up:

• Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools. It's free, and it can import sites you've already verified in Google Search Console instead of making you start over.
• Submit an XML sitemap so Bing knows every URL you want in its index.
• Turn on IndexNow if you publish often. It notifies Bing the moment your content changes instead of waiting for the next crawl.

For site owners, Bing is the main alternative to Google. To get your site indexed and track how it performs in Bing results, start with Bing Webmaster Tools.