At a glance
| robots.txt name | Bingbot |
|---|---|
| Company | Microsoft |
| Kind | AI search. Bing search, which Copilot draws on |
| Visits sites | Yes |
| Official page | www.bing.com |
Bingbot finds and reads pages so Bing can index them and Copilot can quote, cite and link to them in answers that search the web. If you block Bingbot, your site is removed from Bing and from answers that draw on Bing. That means you lose visibility in both traditional search and AI-powered answers.
Almost every business should allow Bingbot. Blocking it removes your site from Bing and from any AI assistant that relies on Bing's index. There is no good reason to block it if you want to be found. Allow it by using Allow: / or by not adding a rule for it in robots.txt.
robots.txt lines
User-agent: Bingbot Disallow: /
User-agent: Bingbot Allow: /
Questions
What is Bingbot?
Bingbot is Microsoft's crawler that builds Bing Search. It also provides the search results that Copilot uses to answer questions.
Should I block Bingbot?
No. Blocking Bingbot removes your site from Bing as well as from answers that draw on Bing. Almost every business should allow it.
How do I block Bingbot in robots.txt?
To block Bingbot for the whole site, add these two lines to robots.txt: User-agent: Bingbot Disallow: /
Does blocking Bingbot affect AI search or Google?
Blocking Bingbot affects AI search that uses Bing, such as Copilot, because those assistants cannot cite or link to your site. It does not affect Google, which uses its own crawlers.