Bing, IndexNow and ChatGPT search: the overlooked basics

Why a search engine you never use matters

Ask most business owners about search and they mean Google. Fair enough: that is where their customers search. But assistants do not all search Google.

• Microsoft Copilot is built on Bing.
• ChatGPT search uses third-party search providers, and OpenAI names Bing among them. Outside analysts have reported it using Google results at times as well, and OpenAI does not publish the mix.
• DuckDuckGo and several smaller engines also draw on Bing's results.

So a page that Bing has never indexed is missing from one of the main sources two of the biggest assistants use. And because few people look, the gap is common. Of everything in Agent SEO, this is the job with the best return on an hour.

Step 1: see where you stand

Go to bing.com and search:

site:yourdomain.com

Count roughly how many pages appear and compare it with the size of your site. A site of fifty pages showing six results has a problem. Showing none means Bing does not know you at all.

Then search for your business name, and for the main thing you sell plus your town. Note where you appear.

Step 2: set up Bing Webmaster Tools

It is free and takes about fifteen minutes.

1. Go to Bing Webmaster Tools and sign in with a Microsoft, Google or Facebook account.
2. Add your site. If you already use Google Search Console, choose the import option: it verifies you and brings your sitemaps across in one step.
3. Otherwise verify by uploading a small file, adding a meta tag, or adding a DNS record.
4. Submit your sitemap address, usually https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml.
5. Use the URL inspection tool on your most important pages. It tells you whether each is indexed and, if not, why.

Come back in a few days and look at the index coverage and any crawl errors.

Step 3: add IndexNow

Normally a search engine finds changes when it next happens to crawl your site, which may be days or weeks later. IndexNow turns that round. When you publish or change a page, your site tells the search engines immediately.

How it works

1. You create a key: a string of 8 to 128 characters using letters, numbers and dashes.
2. You host the key as a text file at the root of your site, named after the key. If the key is abc123def456, the file is https://yourdomain.com/abc123def456.txt and contains just the key. That proves the submissions come from the site's owner.
3. You submit addresses whenever they change.

To submit one address, a simple web request does it:

https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow?url=https://yourdomain.com/new-page&key=abc123def456

To submit many at once, send a POST request with a JSON body. Up to 10,000 addresses fit in one request:

{
  "host": "yourdomain.com",
  "key": "abc123def456",
  "keyLocation": "https://yourdomain.com/abc123def456.txt",
  "urlList": [
    "https://yourdomain.com/",
    "https://yourdomain.com/services",
    "https://yourdomain.com/new-page"
  ]
}

What the replies mean

A 200 or 202 means the search engine got the message. It does not promise the page will be indexed: that still depends on the page being worth indexing.

Who takes part

Submitting to one participating search engine shares the address with the others. Bing is the largest. Others include Yandex, Naver, Seznam and Yep. Google does not take part in IndexNow. For Google you still rely on your sitemap and Search Console.

The easy ways to set it up

• WordPress: Microsoft publishes an IndexNow plugin, and several SEO plugins include it.
• Shopify, Wix and others: some platforms support IndexNow themselves. Check your platform's help pages.
• Cloudflare: has a feature called Crawler Hints that sends IndexNow signals for sites it serves.
• Your own site: add a submission to whatever publishes your pages. This site submits its addresses automatically every time it is deployed.

When I applied this to 11 of my own sites, every submission was accepted, and it took minutes per site.

Step 4: read the AI Performance report

In February 2026 Microsoft added an AI Performance report to Bing Webmaster Tools, in public preview. It is the nearest thing any AI platform gives site owners to a window on citations. It shows:

• Total citations: how often your pages were shown as sources in AI answers.
• Cited pages: which of your pages were cited, and how often.
• Grounding queries: a sample of the phrases the AI used when it retrieved your content.
• Trends over time.

It covers Microsoft Copilot, AI summaries in Bing and some partner integrations. It does not cover ChatGPT, Perplexity or Google. It counts citations, not clicks.

The grounding queries are the valuable part. They show what the assistant was actually looking for when it found you, which is often different from what you would type into a search box.

Common problems

• Bing has indexed almost nothing. Usually no sitemap was ever submitted, or the site has few links pointing to it. Submit the sitemap and use IndexNow.
• Pages show as "discovered but not crawled". Bing knows about them and has not thought them worth fetching yet. Improve the internal links to them and make sure they are not thin.
• The key file returns your home page. Some sites answer every unknown address with the home page. The key file must contain only the key.
• www and non-www both work. Pick one, redirect the other, and submit the one you picked.
• You blocked Bingbot. Check robots.txt and your firewall. How to check.

Does this guarantee anything with ChatGPT?

No, and I would distrust anyone who says it does. OpenAI has not published how much of ChatGPT's search comes from Bing, and it uses other sources too. What I can say is that being properly indexed by Bing removes one clear reason for being missed, and that Microsoft itself says IndexNow "helps keep information fresh across search and AI experiences".

It also costs nothing but an hour.

Frequently asked questions

Does ChatGPT use Bing?

Partly. OpenAI says ChatGPT search uses third-party search providers and names Bing as one of them. Independent analysis has also found it using Google results at times. OpenAI does not publish the proportions.

What is IndexNow?

IndexNow is an open protocol that lets a website tell search engines the moment a page is added, changed or removed. You host a key file on your site and send the changed addresses to a participating search engine, which shares them with the others.

Does Google support IndexNow?

No. Google does not take part in IndexNow. Bing, Yandex, Naver, Seznam and Yep are among the engines that do. For Google, keep your sitemap current and use Search Console.

Is Bing Webmaster Tools free?

Yes. It is free to use, and you can import your sites from Google Search Console, which verifies them and copies your sitemaps in one step.

How quickly does IndexNow work?

The notification is immediate. How soon the page is crawled and indexed is up to the search engine. It is usually much faster than waiting to be discovered, but no search engine promises a time.

Sources

• IndexNow, Documentation. Checked 10 November 2026.
• OpenAI, Publishers and developers FAQ. Checked 10 November 2026.
• Bing Webmaster Blog, Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools, 10 February 2026.
• Ahrefs, Is ChatGPT really powered by Google?. An outside analysis, not confirmed by OpenAI.
• My own IndexNow submissions for 11 websites, 10 November 2026: the case study.