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Microsoft Copilot and Bing

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Copilot grounds its answers in Bing's index, so Bing SEO is Copilot SEO. Microsoft's Webmaster Guidelines cover Bing search, Copilot and grounding API results, recommend IndexNow for fast updates, and warn that NOCACHE and NOARCHIVE limit Copilot's use of your content. Bing Webmaster Tools' AI Performance report shows how often your pages are cited.

How Copilot sources answers

Bing’s guidelines “describe how Bing discovers, crawls, indexes, evaluates, and surfaces content across Bing search experiences, Copilot, and grounding API results.” They state that Bing and Copilot “rely on the same core crawling, indexing, and ranking foundation as traditional search.”[1] Vendor-documented

Microsoft’s grounding guidance

GuidelineWhat Bing says
DiscoveryUse IndexNow, sitemaps with accurate lastmod, internal links and external links[1]
Change notificationUse IndexNow when content is added, updated or removed; streaming submissions beat batches[1][2]
Stand-alone contentURLs are more likely to be selected when content “stands on its own”, with explicit facts and definitions[1]
EntitiesUse clear, consistent names for people, organizations, products and places[1]
One topic per URLFocused URLs are more likely to be selected for grounding[1]
Key information earlyAvoid long introductions before the main topic[1]
Structured data“May support clearer grounding but does not guarantee visibility”; must match visible content[1]
MultimodalImages and video should reinforce text, not be the only source of key information[1]

Directives that affect Copilot

Audit these tags site-wide. Many sites set noarchive for unrelated reasons and remove themselves from Copilot answers without meaning to.

GEO in Bing’s own words

Bing states that “SEO does not guarantee rankings or traffic, and GEO does not guarantee grounding or citations in AI experiences,” and lists abuses that can cost grounding eligibility: cloaking, link schemes, duplicate content and “prompt injection and AI manipulation.”[1]

AI Performance report

Launched in public preview on February 10, 2026, AI Performance shows citations across Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and “select partner integrations”: total citations, average cited pages per day, page-level citation counts, sampled “grounding queries” and trends over time.[3][4] Microsoft says counts reflect how often pages are cited, “not their importance, ranking, or role within a response.”[4]

Checklist for Copilot

  1. Verify the site in Bing Webmaster Tools and submit the sitemap.
  2. Set up IndexNow (many CMSs and CDNs support it).
  3. Remove noarchive and nocache from pages you want cited.
  4. Put the answer and key facts at the top of each page.
  5. Review AI Performance monthly; improve pages that are cited rarely for their grounding queries.

Frequently asked questions

Is optimizing for Copilot different from Bing SEO?

Very little. Microsoft says Copilot uses the same crawling, indexing and ranking foundation, and its guidelines add grounding-specific advice such as avoiding NOCACHE and NOARCHIVE.

Where can I see Copilot citations?

In Bing Webmaster Tools under AI Performance, launched in public preview in February 2026.

Does IndexNow help AI answers?

Bing says timely IndexNow notifications help it refresh the index and reduce outdated URL references in Copilot responses and grounding results.

References

Pages accessed September 28, 2026 unless a date is given. See all sources and our editorial policy.

  1. ^ "Bing Webmaster Guidelines". Microsoft Bing Webmaster Tools.
  2. ^ "IndexNow protocol". IndexNow.org.
  3. ^ "Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview". Bing Webmaster Blog. Published February 10, 2026.
  4. ^ "AI Performance (help documentation)". Microsoft Bing Webmaster Tools.
Categories: Answer engines