Most indexing advice is written with Google in mind, and Bing gets ignored. That's a mistake. Bing's index powers more than Bing itself. Yahoo search results are powered by Bing, DuckDuckGo gets much of its traditional web results from Bing, and other search engines and AI-driven tools have used Bing's index too. If you're not in Bing, you're missing from more places than you'd think.
The good news is that Bing gives site owners more direct tools than Google does, including full support for IndexNow.
How Bing's index reaches other engines
- Bing. Its own results, crawled by
bingbot. - Yahoo. Yahoo's organic web results come from Bing under a long-standing partnership.
- DuckDuckGo. DuckDuckGo combines many sources. For standard web links Bing is a major one, alongside its own crawler, DuckDuckBot, which it uses for some features. DuckDuckGo has no submission tool of its own, so the practical route into its results is through Bing.
- Ecosia and others. Ecosia has long drawn on Bing's results, and several smaller search engines license Bing data as well.
So in practice, "how do I get indexed on DuckDuckGo?" mostly comes down to "how do I get indexed on Bing?". We cover the DuckDuckGo side in more detail on the DuckDuckGo indexer page.
Step 1: Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools
Sign in to Bing Webmaster Tools and add your site. If you've already verified it in Google Search Console, you can import it directly along with your sitemaps, which takes a couple of minutes. Otherwise, verify with an XML file, a meta tag or a DNS record.
Once you're verified, you get:
- URL Inspection. See whether a URL is indexed and how bingbot sees it.
- URL Submission. Submit URLs manually, up to the daily quota shown in your account.
- Sitemaps. Submit and monitor XML sitemaps.
- Site Scan. A built-in SEO audit that flags common technical problems.
- Crawl control. Adjust when and how heavily bingbot crawls your site.
Step 2: Submit a clean sitemap
Submit your XML sitemap in Bing Webmaster Tools and reference it in robots.txt:
Sitemap: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xmlBing treats an accurate lastmod as a strong hint, so only update it when the content actually changes. Keep the sitemap limited to canonical, indexable URLs that return 200. The sitemap validator catches malformed XML, wrong URL versions and entries that don't return 200.
Step 3: Turn on IndexNow
IndexNow is the fastest way to tell Bing about new and changed pages on your own site. Microsoft Bing co-created the protocol, and submissions are shared with the other participating engines (Yandex, Seznam, Naver and Yep).
Setup is simple:
- Generate a key and host it as a text file at the root of your domain
- Send a request to the IndexNow endpoint whenever you publish, update or delete a URL
- Check the IndexNow section of Bing Webmaster Tools to see received submissions
Many CMS platforms, SEO plugins and CDNs can send IndexNow pings automatically. For how it compares with Google's protocol, see Google Indexing API vs IndexNow.
Step 4: Fix what stops bingbot
Bing crawls less aggressively than Google on many sites, so blockers hurt more. Check these:
- robots.txt rules. Make sure you aren't disallowing
bingbotby accident, for example with a user-agent group meant for another crawler. Test specific paths with the robots.txt tester. - Firewall and bot protection. Security plugins and CDN bot rules sometimes challenge or block bingbot. Check your WAF logs for blocked requests from Bing's crawler and allow verified bingbot traffic.
- Crawl-delay. Bing respects the
Crawl-delaydirective in robots.txt. A high value can slow indexing a lot, so you may prefer to use the crawl control settings in Webmaster Tools instead. - Meta robots. Bing honours
noindexandnofollowlike Google does. It also recognises abingbot-specific meta tag, so check you haven't set one unintentionally. - Thin and duplicate content. Bing's quality bar applies just as much. Near-duplicate pages are often left out.
Step 5: Help bingbot discover pages you don't own
IndexNow and URL Submission only work for verified sites. For backlinks, guest posts and citations on other people's domains, you're back to discovery signals: links from crawled pages, social sharing, and services that create crawl paths and log crawler visits. Our guide to indexing backlinks fast covers the full process.
How long does Bing indexing take?
There's no fixed timeline, and Bing doesn't promise one. Pages submitted through IndexNow or URL Submission on a healthy, verified site are often crawled quickly. Indexing then depends on the page: original, useful pages usually make it in, while thin or duplicate pages may not. As with every search engine, Bing decides what it indexes.
Once Bing has indexed a page, it can take additional time to appear in Yahoo or DuckDuckGo, because those engines refresh partner data on their own schedules.
Quick checklist
- Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools (import from Search Console if you can)
- Submit your sitemap and reference it in robots.txt
- Turn on IndexNow
- Check that robots.txt, your firewall and crawl-delay aren't slowing bingbot
- Use URL Inspection to confirm important pages
- For third-party URLs, build discovery signals and confirm crawler visits
Get indexed on Bing with QuickIndexx
QuickIndexx sends your URLs to Bing through IndexNow and its discovery channels, which also helps them reach Yahoo and DuckDuckGo. Each bingbot visit is logged, and if no crawl is recorded within 24 hours the credit comes back. Start on the Bing indexer page or compare plans on pricing.