Bingbot is Microsoft's Bing search crawler. It indexes pages for Bing, and because Bing also grounds Microsoft Copilot, the same index feeds Copilot's answers. It is a search crawler with dual reach across traditional search and an AI assistant.
Blocking Bingbot means you lose Bing organic visibility and become ineligible as a citable source in Copilot, since Copilot draws on Bing's index to ground its responses.
How to check and control it
To check, look in your robots.txt for a rule targeting this user-agent. To allow or block it:
User-agent: Bingbot
Disallow: / # blocks it — remove or set "Allow: /" to permitFor an instant check across your whole site, use SEO AEO Specialist's free AI crawler checker, and see the llms.txt & AI crawler guide.
FAQ
Does blocking Bingbot affect Microsoft Copilot?
Yes. Copilot grounds many of its answers in Bing's index, so if Bingbot can't crawl you, you're absent from both Bing results and Copilot's citable sources. Keeping Bingbot allowed protects your visibility across search and Microsoft's AI assistant at once.
Is Bingbot the same as Googlebot?
No. Bingbot is Microsoft's crawler for Bing (and Copilot grounding), while Googlebot serves Google Search. They are separate user-agents with separate robots.txt rules, so you can allow or block each independently. SEO AEO Specialist checks both and flags accidental blocks.
See where you stand
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