Bingbot

Bingbot is the web crawler used by the Microsoft Bing search engine to discover and index content on the World Wide Web. It navigates websites by following hyperlinks from one page to another, downloading HTML and other resources so that Bing can analyze page structure and content for inclusion in its search index.

Webmasters control Bingbot's access using robots.txt, and Bing Webmaster Tools provides diagnostics, indexing reports, and controls such as crawl rate settings and sitemap submissions. Bing also supports sitemaps to help the crawler locate content and understand update frequency. The crawler identifies itself with a Bingbot user agent string, and separate crawlers exist for mobile and image content.

Bing's crawling strategy aims to balance fresh content with server load. It caches pages, tracks changes, and prioritizes popular or frequently updated sites, while respecting robots.txt and site-specific crawl delays. It also uses rendering techniques to understand JavaScript-generated content as part of its indexing pipeline.

Bingbot's activity is a core component of Bing's indexing workflow. By collecting and analyzing pages, it feeds Bing's ranking algorithms that determine how pages appear in search results across languages and regions. Site owners can monitor crawl health, submit sitemaps, and implement SEO best practices to improve visibility in Bing.