Microsoft

Microsoft Copilot (with Bing)

Microsoft's chat surface using Bing's index — the third-largest answer engine.

How it works

Microsoft Copilot (formerly Bing Chat) is Microsoft's AI chat surface integrated with Bing search. Underlying model is GPT-4 (via OpenAI partnership) with Microsoft fine-tuning. Retrieval uses Bing's existing index — same crawl + ranking system used for traditional Bing search. Citations rendered as numbered footnotes with source cards. Available in bing.com/chat, Edge browser sidebar, Windows 11 Copilot, and Microsoft 365 Copilot.

Official docs

User-agents

BingbotMSNBot

Allow these in your robots.txt explicitly. Audit your current setup with the robots.txt analyzer.

Signals it weights heavily

Bing's traditional ranking signals (content, links, freshness)
JSON-LD schema
Bing Webmaster Tools verification
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How to optimize for Microsoft Copilot (with Bing)

Allow Bingbot explicitly — many sites neglect Bing.
Submit to Bing Webmaster Tools — Bing's verification signal lifts Copilot citation rates.
Bing's ranking weights skewed toward older, more authoritative content vs Google's freshness-weighted approach.

See your score on Microsoft Copilot (with Bing)'s signals.

Run free audit

Other engines

ChatGPT Search

OpenAI

Claude (with web tool)