bingbot

What is bingbot?

Bingbot is the web crawler operated by Microsoft that powers the Bing search engine. Microsoft created this crawler to discover, read, and index content across the internet for inclusion in Bing's search results. As a dedicated web indexing bot, bingbot systematically visits websites to gather information about their content, structure, and updates.

The crawler identifies itself in server logs with user-agent strings that typically include bingbot or msnbot (its predecessor). A standard user-agent string might appear as Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; bingbot/2.0; +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm) in your access logs.

Bingbot works by following links between web pages, downloading content, and analyzing it for relevance and quality. This information is then processed and added to Bing's search index, making your content discoverable to users searching on Bing or partner services that use Bing's search technology. The crawler is designed to be efficient and respectful of server resources, typically adjusting its crawling frequency based on a site's popularity, update frequency, and server response times.

Why is bingbot crawling my site?

Bingbot crawls your site to discover and index your content for Bing search results. If you're seeing bingbot in your logs, it means Microsoft's search engine is evaluating your pages for potential inclusion in its search index. This is generally beneficial for your site's visibility.

The frequency of bingbot visits depends on several factors, including:

1. Your site's popularity and authority
2. How often you update your content
3. Your site's performance and response times
4. The depth and breadth of your site structure

For regularly updated sites like news publications, bingbot might visit multiple times daily. For static sites with infrequent updates, visits might occur weekly or less often. Bingbot is particularly interested in new or updated content, so publishing fresh material often triggers more frequent crawling.

What is the purpose of bingbot?

Bingbot's primary purpose is to gather information that powers Microsoft's Bing search engine. By crawling websites, bingbot helps Bing maintain an up-to-date index of the internet, enabling users to find relevant content when they search.

For website owners, bingbot serves several valuable functions:

• It helps make your content discoverable to Bing users
• It ensures updated content gets reflected in search results
• It analyzes your site's structure and performance
• It evaluates content quality and relevance for search rankings

The data collected by bingbot is processed by Bing's algorithms to determine how pages should rank for different search queries. This includes analyzing content quality, relevance, user engagement signals, and hundreds of other ranking factors.

How do I block bingbot?

While bingbot is generally beneficial for site visibility, there may be legitimate reasons to control its access. Bingbot respects the robots.txt protocol, making it relatively straightforward to manage its crawling behavior.

To completely block bingbot from your entire site, add these lines to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: bingbot
Disallow: /

For more selective control, you can block specific directories or files:

User-agent: bingbot
Disallow: /private-folder/
Disallow: /temporary-content.html

You can also use the robots.txt file to prevent bingbot from crawling certain file types:

User-agent: bingbot
Disallow: /*.pdf$

Microsoft also provides a Bing Webmaster Tools platform where you can adjust crawl rate settings and submit removal requests for outdated content. This gives you additional control beyond robots.txt directives.

Keep in mind that blocking bingbot will result in your content being removed from Bing search results over time, potentially reducing your site's visibility to users who use Bing or its partner search engines. For most sites, allowing bingbot access is advantageous unless you have specific content you don't want indexed or are experiencing server load issues from excessive crawling.