How to Submit Your Sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools (Step-by-Step)
A complete guide to submitting your website sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools, including why it matters for AI-powered search and ChatGPT discoverability.
A complete guide to submitting your website sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tools, including why it matters for AI-powered search and ChatGPT discoverability.
Bing Webmaster Tools is Microsoft's equivalent of Google Search Console. It allows you to submit your XML sitemap, monitor how Bing crawls and indexes your site, and identify technical issues that prevent your pages from appearing in search results.
Here's why submitting your sitemap to Bing matters more than ever:
Bing powers ChatGPT search. When users search the web using ChatGPT, the underlying search engine is Bing. If your content isn't indexed by Bing, it won't be surfaced in ChatGPT's search results or cited in AI-generated responses.
Microsoft Copilot uses Bing's index. Copilot, integrated into Microsoft 365 and Windows, relies on Bing to retrieve web content. Ensuring your site is indexed increases the likelihood of your content being referenced in Copilot summaries.
Perplexity and other AI search engines monitor Bing. While Perplexity uses its own web crawler, it also leverages data from major search engines including Bing. A well-indexed site on Bing improves your chances of being cited in AI-generated answers across multiple platforms.
AI-referred traffic converts 5× higher. Users arriving at your site via AI search or citation have already been pre-qualified by the AI's relevance filtering. They're looking for authoritative, specific information — and if your content matches their query, they convert at significantly higher rates than traditional search traffic.
A sitemap is an XML file that lists all the important pages on your website. It tells search engines which URLs to crawl, how often they change, and which pages are most important.
Your sitemap typically lives at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml or yourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xml. Most content management systems (WordPress, Webflow, Framer, Shopify) generate sitemaps automatically.
A properly formatted sitemap includes:
Before you submit your sitemap to Bing, you need to locate it. Try these methods:
1. Check your robots.txt file
Visit yourdomain.com/robots.txt — many sites include a sitemap reference at the bottom of this file.
2. Try the standard sitemap URLs
Most sites use one of these formats:
yourdomain.com/sitemap.xmlyourdomain.com/sitemap_index.xmlyourdomain.com/sitemap-index.xml3. Check your CMS settings
yourdomain.com/sitemap.xmlyourdomain.com/sitemap.xmlyourdomain.com/sitemap.xml4. Use a sitemap checker tool
Tools like XML-Sitemaps.com can crawl your site and identify your sitemap location.
Visit bing.com/webmasters and sign in with a Microsoft account. If you don't have one, create a free account.
Click "Add a site" and enter your website URL (e.g., https://yourdomain.com).
Bing will ask you to verify ownership. You have three options:
<head> sectionOnce verified, Bing Webmaster Tools will begin crawling your site.
In the left-hand menu, click "Sitemaps".
Click the "Submit sitemap" button in the top-right corner.
Enter the full URL of your sitemap (e.g., https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml) and click Submit.
Bing will now fetch your sitemap and begin crawling the URLs listed within it.
After submission, return to the Sitemaps page to check indexing progress. Bing will display:
Indexing typically takes 1–3 days for small sites, and up to two weeks for larger sites.
You can declare your sitemap location in your robots.txt file. Bing will automatically detect it when crawling your site.
Add this line to yourdomain.com/robots.txt:
Sitemap: https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xmlThis method doesn't replace submitting via Bing Webmaster Tools, but it acts as a backup signal for search engines.
If you have technical access to your server, you can ping Bing's API to notify them of sitemap updates.
Use this URL structure:
https://www.bing.com/ping?sitemap=https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xmlSend an HTTP GET request to this endpoint whenever you publish new content or update your sitemap. This is useful for sites that publish frequently (e.g., news sites, eCommerce platforms).
Before submitting your sitemap to Bing, validate it using these tools:
1. XML Sitemap Validator
Visit xml-sitemaps.com/validate-xml-sitemap and enter your sitemap URL. It will check for formatting errors.
2. Bing Webmaster Tools Sitemap Report
After submission, Bing will flag errors such as:
3. Manual Inspection
Open your sitemap in a browser. It should display as a structured XML file, not a blank page or error message.
Cause: Your sitemap URL is incorrect, returns a 404 error, or is blocked by robots.txt.
Fix: Verify the sitemap URL by visiting it directly in a browser. Check your robots.txt file to ensure you haven't accidentally blocked /sitemap.xml.
Cause: Your sitemap includes URLs on a different domain or subdomain.
Fix: Ensure all URLs in your sitemap share the same root domain as the site you verified in Bing Webmaster Tools. For example, if you verified example.com, don't include blog.example.com URLs in the same sitemap.
Cause: URLs in your sitemap are disallowed in your robots.txt file.
Fix: Review your robots.txt and remove Disallow rules for URLs you want indexed.
Cause: URLs in your sitemap redirect to other pages (e.g., http:// → https://, or old URL → new URL).
Fix: Update your sitemap to include only the final destination URLs. Remove redirected URLs.
Most content teams focus exclusively on Google. But Bing's relevance has grown dramatically since Microsoft integrated it into ChatGPT and Copilot.
Here's what makes Bing critical for AI-powered search:
ChatGPT search uses Bing's index. When users enable ChatGPT's web browsing feature, it queries Bing in real time. If your content isn't indexed by Bing, it won't be surfaced in ChatGPT search results.
Bing powers Microsoft Copilot. Copilot is embedded in Windows 11, Microsoft 365, and Edge. Millions of users rely on Copilot for research, and it pulls content exclusively from Bing's index.
AI platforms prioritise fresh, structured content. Bing Webmaster Tools shows you which pages are indexed, how recently they were crawled, and whether they contain structured data (schema markup). Pages with clear headings, FAQ sections, and schema markup are more likely to be cited by AI models.
AI citation = high-authority traffic. When ChatGPT or Copilot cites your content, users perceive it as authoritative. This pre-qualification means visitors arrive with high intent and convert at significantly higher rates than traditional search traffic.
If you publish new content regularly, ensure your sitemap updates automatically. Most CMS platforms do this by default, but if you're using a custom-built site, configure your sitemap to regenerate on publish.
Don't include every page in your sitemap. Exclude:
If your site has more than 50,000 URLs, split your sitemap into multiple files and create a sitemap index file that references them all.
Example:
<sitemapindex xmlns="http://www.sitemaps.org/schemas/sitemap/0.9">
<sitemap>
<loc>https://yourdomain.com/sitemap-posts.xml</loc>
</sitemap>
<sitemap>
<loc>https://yourdomain.com/sitemap-pages.xml</loc>
</sitemap>
</sitemapindex>Check Bing Webmaster Tools weekly for crawl errors. Fix 404s, redirect chains, and blocked URLs promptly to maintain indexing health.
Don't rely on Bing alone. Submit your sitemap to Google Search Console as well to maximise discoverability across both traditional search and AI platforms.
Indexing speed depends on your site's size, authority, and crawl budget:
New domains with low authority may take longer. To speed up indexing:
yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml)robots.txt as backupAt Nightingale AI, we understand that search is no longer just about Google rankings. AI platforms like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Perplexity are transforming how employees discover workplace benefits.
Our Benefit Pathfinder allows employees to describe their health needs in natural language — "I've been struggling to sleep", "my back's been bad since the office move" — and instantly routes them to the right benefit, ranked by relevance and cost-effectiveness.
This is Generative Engine Optimisation (GEO) in action: natural language inputs, AI-powered intent detection, and structured, quotable answers that AI models can cite.
If you're an HR leader, benefits broker, or insurer looking to make your benefits programme discoverable to AI-powered search, see how Nightingale works.