Later this year, Microsoft has announced that there will be a public beta of "Live Search Webmaster Portal," a collection of tools and information for site owners akin to the Google Webmaster Central and Yahoo Site Explorer offerings from those respective search engines. A private beta of these tools is about to begin.

The new portal will consolidate existing submit links such as:

• Web search submission
• Local listing control
• Live Product Search Upload
• Video submission
• Book submission

It will also consolidate existing tools such as the Live Search Box and introduce new tools with reporting on:

• Linking data
• Indexing data
• Crawling data

The portal will also offer new technical support tools such as:

• Expanded and consolidated site owner help pages
• A dedicated site owner forum running through the Microsoft Developer Networks forum area
• A dedicated blog for site owners
• More feedback forms

As said, there’s a public beta planned for later this year. However, a private beta is starting for publishers who meet key criteria (mainly those with mid-sized to large web sites). Send an email to lswmp@microsoft.com if you want to participate in the private beta.

Related Topics: Microsoft: Bing SEO

About The Author: Danny Sullivan is editor-in-chief of Search Engine Land. He’s a widely cited authority on search engines and search marketing issues who has covered the space since 1996. Danny also oversees Search Engine Land’s SMX: Search Marketing Expo conference series. He maintains a personal blog called Daggle (and maintains his disclosures page there). He can be found on Facebook, Google + and microblogs on Twitter as @dannysullivan. See more articles by Danny Sullivan