Bing Places for business: a profile in Bing and in Copilot

Many businesses take care of their Google listing and stop there. Meanwhile, Bing also powers Copilot and other Microsoft products, and setting up an account takes a dozen or so minutes. A well-done setup gives you an additional place where a customer can find you.

In this guide you will go through the whole process with me: Bing Places for business, Bing Webmaster Tools and IndexNow. At the end you get a 20-minute plan that you can tick off item by item.

Why a business needs Bing when there is Google

Google is the main source of customers in Poland, and I am not changing that. Bing is an add-on, but a cheap one to maintain. Its data goes into Microsoft products, including Copilot, the AI assistant that some people use daily on their computers.

I don’t promise that after this setup your business will appear in ChatGPT. The evidence for such a link is circumstantial, so treat it as a possible bonus. What is certain is that without submitting your website and listing, you leave Bing to guess about your business.

What exactly you will do

There are three separate elements. Each serves a different purpose:

The order matters. The listing comes first, because you need the same business data, and then the website.

Step 1: set up Bing Places

The new Bing Places has been running since 3 October 2025 at bing.com/forbusiness (the old address bingplaces.com redirects to the new one). In the Polish version, the service is called “Miejsca Bing dla firm”. If you have a Google listing, the fastest way is to import the data from it.

1. Go to bing.com/forbusiness, click “Get started” (“Rozpocznij” in the Polish interface) and sign in with a Microsoft account (you can create one for free). The panel also accepts signing in with a Google account or through Facebook.
2. Choose the option to add a business or to import from Google.
3. For an import, sign in to the Google account that manages your Business Profile and select the right location.
4. Check the imported data and correct whatever doesn’t match.

Import saves time, but it doesn’t exempt you from checking. Always check four things:

• name, address and phone identical to those on your website and in Google,
• opening hours, including holidays,
• primary category and business description,
• website address without errors and with https.

Don’t have a Google listing? Enter the data manually. It is then worth setting up a Google Business Profile at the same time, which I do as part of the Google Business Profile service.

Step 2: confirm that it is your business

If you add the business manually, Bing will ask for verification. The available methods depend on the business and the country; usually it is a code (PIN) delivered by phone, text message, email or post. Choose the fastest one and enter the code in the panel. When you import from a verified Google Business Profile, separate verification may not be needed, but check the listing status in the panel anyway.

Without verification, the listing may not appear in Bing, and you do not have full control over its data. If the code is coming by post, plan for it to take a few days and come back to this item later.

Step 3: submit your website in Bing Webmaster Tools

Bing Webmaster Tools is the equivalent of Google Search Console. It shows how Bing sees your website and lets you submit a sitemap. Since 10 February 2026 it also has an AI Performance report, introduced as a preview. It shows how often your subpages are cited as sources in Microsoft Copilot answers, in AI summaries in Bing and with selected Microsoft partners.

1. Go to Bing Webmaster Tools and sign in with the same Microsoft account.
2. Add your website. The easiest way is to import it from Google Search Console, because then you don’t have to upload verification files.
3. If you don’t have Search Console, choose manual verification: an XML file (BingSiteAuth.xml) in the root directory, a meta tag in the page code, or a CNAME record in the domain’s DNS.
4. Add the sitemap, usually at yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml.

I do the same for clients in the Submission to Google and Bing service, together with the Search Console configuration and the sitemap.

Step 4: turn on IndexNow

IndexNow is a protocol through which a website itself informs search engines about a new, changed or removed subpage. It is supported by Bing, as well as Yandex, Seznam and Naver, among others, which pass submissions to each other. Thanks to this, Bing learns about changes faster instead of waiting for a crawler visit. Google is not on the list of search engines supporting IndexNow (as of 20 October 2026), so don’t treat it as a way to rank faster in Google.

The simple version looks like this:

1. Generate a key, that is, a string of 8 to 128 characters (letters, digits and hyphens).
2. Save it in a text file named after the key with a .txt ending (e.g. yourkey.txt) in the website’s root directory. Inside the file is just the key.
3. Send the URLs of changed subpages to IndexNow.

If your website runs on WordPress, a plugin with IndexNow support is usually enough. For a website written to order, ask the person who maintains it to send URLs automatically on publication.

A 20-minute plan: a checklist

Prepare in advance: the business data (name, address, phone, hours), the website address and access to the Google account with your Business Profile.

1. Minutes 0–2: create a Microsoft account or sign in to an existing one.
2. Minutes 2–6: go to bing.com/forbusiness and import the business from Google or enter the data manually.
3. Minutes 6–10: check the name, address, phone, hours, category and website address. Choose a verification method.
4. Minutes 10–14: go to Bing Webmaster Tools and import the website from Google Search Console.
5. Minutes 14–16: add the sitemap and check that the panel accepted it without an error.
6. Minutes 16–19: turn on IndexNow (a plugin or a request to your website’s developer).
7. Minute 20: note down the date and set a reminder for two weeks later to check the reports.

If the listing requires a code by post, finish everything except verification and come back to it when the letter arrives.

What to check after two weeks

Go back to Bing Webmaster Tools and look at the reports. Look for three things:

• whether the sitemap is processed and the number of indexed URLs is close to the number of your subpages,
• whether there are no indexing errors,
• whether the AI Performance report shows citations of your subpages and for which phrases (grounding queries).

Microsoft keeps expanding this report (in June 2026 it added, among other things, intents, topics and share of citations), and the new features are in preview, so treat the numbers with caution. The report shows the number of citations, the cited subpages and sample phrases, but not the number of clicks, so it doesn’t measure customers. No citations at the start doesn’t mean an error in the setup. If you want to measure how many people actually come from Bing, check the “Traffic acquisition” report in GA4 (“Pozyskiwanie ruchu” in the Polish interface), source bing.

For AI to cite a business more readily, clear content and an llms.txt file also help. I describe this in the guide llms.txt: how to show your business in ChatGPT and AI Overviews, and I do the implementation in the AI visibility service.

The most common mistakes

• Different data in Bing and in Google. A different phone number or different hours confuse customers and weaken credibility.
• No listing verification. The data is entered, but the verification code isn’t. Then you don’t have full control.
• A sitemap with the wrong address. After a domain change or a move to https, the old sitemap stays and reports errors.
• A submission without follow-up. An account that was set up once sometimes has to be checked, especially after changes to the website.
• Expecting miracles. It is a supplement to Google, not a replacement for it.

If your website doesn’t appear in the results at all, start with the guide A business website doesn’t show up in Google. The same causes usually apply to Bing too.

Summary

Bing Places, Bing Webmaster Tools and IndexNow are about 20 minutes of work, at no cost. First put your business data in order, then submit your website, and after two weeks check the reports. Don’t count on a guarantee in ChatGPT, but you gain an additional place in the results and in the Copilot ecosystem.

If you prefer someone to do it for you, write to me. I will submit your website as part of the Submission to Google and Bing service, and while I’m at it I will check how your business looks in the free audit Check your website.