Microsoft launched revamped Bing Webmaster Tools

With this launch, Bing added a URL inspection tool with some exciting features.

Chat with SearchBot

Bing announced it has completed the migration from the old Bing Webmaster Tools to the new Bing Webmaster Tools. With this launch, Bing also launched a new URL inspection tool, a new Robots.txt tester tool, the site scan tool and a new webmaster guidelines.

With this migration Bing was able to consolidate 47 different links in the old version to 17 different links, since most of the links have been consolidated and bundled into fewer tools that do more. Bing said this makes the new Bing Webmaster Tools user experience “more user friendly and intuitive.”

How to access Bing Webmaster Tools. You can access Bing Webmaster Tools at two different URLs, depending on if you want the old version or the new version:

Old version is going away. The old version will be going away sometime next month and will not be supporting the old version after that.

More to come. Bing said it is not done with tools for Bing Webmaster Tools, Bing said “we are not done. Now that we have migrated to this new improved platform and experience, we will be enhancing tools listening to your feedback and shipping new salient features including a refreshed version Index Explorer this summer.”

If you have ideas or concerns, Bing said reach out to them on Twitter @BingWMC or via this support form.

New Tools. As we said above, Bing added several new features to Bing Webmaster Tools that are now within the new version. We covered some of them including the new Robots.txt tester tool, the site scan tool and a new webmaster guidelines.

  • URL inspection is an exciting BETA feature allowing to inspect Bing indexed version of your URLs allowing to detect potential indexing issues due to crawl or not following Bing Webmaster guidelines.
  • Site Scan is an on-demand site audit tool which crawls your site and checks for common technical SEO issues allowing to improve your website performance at Bing and other search engines as well.
  • Robots.txt tester allows to check your robots.txt file using the same parser we use in production and verify that your URLs are allowed or disallowed as you want.

New URL inspection tool. The URL inspection tool we have not covered but it is available over here. This tool allows you to inspect Bing indexed version of your URLs allowing to detect potential indexing issues due to crawl or not following Bing Webmaster guidelines. It is similar to the Google URL inspection tool but gives you a view of what BingBot sees versus what GoogleBot sees.

We did a comparison of Google vs. Bing’s URL Inspection tools.

Enhanced or updated tools. Bing also updated several of the tools in the new version of Bing Webmaster Tools. Here is the list:

  • Backlinks lists backlinks for any site, including similar sites.
  • Keywords research allows to filter by countries, languages, and devices.
  • URL submission offers easy to navigate user flow with metrics and history. We have also ease URL submission via our WordPress plugin allowing to get your content indexed automatically and quickly by just installing this plugin.
  • SEO reports offers an improved classification of issues.
  • Adding and verifying a site offers a smoother experience for your site, Google Search Console or via Domain Connect.

Bing Webmaster Tools API. Nothing is changing with the API right now. Bing said “continue as-is, so users using them to get their data programmatically do not have to make any changes.”

Why we care. Bing has shown it is serious about helping SEOs, developers, webmasters and site owners with this revamped Webmaster Tools. This tool is free, useful and has tons of features to help you debug issues with your Bing indexing, crawling and ranking. It gives you new insights into your site’s performance in Bing Search and more.

We highly recommend you verify your sites in Bing Webmaster Tools and walk through the new version.


About the author

Barry Schwartz
Staff
Barry Schwartz is a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.

Get the must-read newsletter for search marketers.