According to Statcounter, Bing search has a market share of 2.75%, which seems minuscule when we compare it with Google which has a market share of 91%.
However, as a webmaster, if a minor effort helps in driving more organic traffic from the other search engines, it is worth the effort.
The fastest and easiest way to get started with Bing search is by adding your website to Bing webmaster tool. The webmaster tool dashboard helps you in getting your website on Bing search, but also provides invaluable data for optimizing your website for Bing search.
Bing URL Submissions WordPress plugin is the latest addition by Bing webmaster team to help WordPress users to improve their visibility in Bing search. This plugin does a lot of things, and the most notable one is, it helps you in faster indexing in the Bing search engine.
Before using this plugin, I tested if all my URL’s are indexed in Bing search, and to my surprise, I found some URL’s were not indexed.
You can use site search parameter like site:URL to check if a URL is indexed in Bing search or not.
This gives more reasons to use Bing URL submission WordPress plugin. According to Bing webmaster blog, here are some of the features of this new plugin:
- The ability to toggle the automatic submission feature on and off.
- Manually submit a URL to Bing Index.
- View list of recent URL submissions from the plugin.
- Retry any failed submissions from the recent submissions list.
- Download recent URL submissions for analysis.
Also,
Since last year, webmasters have the ability to submit up to 10,000 URLs per day, and more if requested, through the Bing Webmaster Tools portal as well as the Bing Webmaster Tools API for immediate crawl and indexation.
To improve the crawling and indexing of my newest articles on Bing search, I installed and configured the plugin. If you are also noticing indexing issues or in a news related niche where faster indexing makes a difference, you should also be using the Bing URL submission WordPress plugin.
Here is how to configure the plugin…
How to set up Bing URL submission WordPress plugin
- Install and activate Bing URL submission plugin
- Go to settings of the plugin and it would ask you for the API key.
- Login to Bing webmaster tool to get your API key
- You need to select your site, click on settings > API access > Generate API key to get the API key
Once you have added the API key to Bing WordPress plugin settings, you will see a dashboard like this:
- Click on “Submit URL” to submit any post to get indexed in Bing search engine.
In most of the cases, Bing automatically picks your article for indexation via sitemap (If you have submitted your website via Bing webmaster tool), and do manual submission for the selected unindexed article.
IMO this plugin is useful when your WordPress website is facing crawling and indexing issue in Bing search engine. Else, you are better off without this plugin.
The best thing to do is, ensure your recent articles are indexed in Bing search engine, else you can also “Submit URL” feature of Bing webmaster tool dashboard:
Over all, this is a nice extension to have when needed for submitting URL manually for Bing search indexation. I’m happy to see that Bing is catching up with Google in terms of offering more tools, and resources for webmasters to improve website visibility in Bing.
Now its your turn to do a few things:
- Use the search operator ” Site:URL” to check if your recent articles are indexed in the Bing search or not.
- If not, either use the above plugin or manual URL submission of Bing webmaster tool to index your website.
Do let me know if your recent articles are indexed in Bing search or not. If not, what actions have you taken to improve the crawling and indexing of your website?
Hi Harsh,
I desperately needed this article because I wanted to submit my blog to the Bing search engine and I did not know how to submit my blog to the Bing search engine, you have helped me a lot.
Thank you very much.
Hi Harsh,
Another great piece of content.
I had a question though – Is Bing search really something we should be investing our time in?
Especially when you talk about adding a dedicated plugin for the same, is it really worth it?
Hi Harsh Sir,
I desperately needed this article because I wanted to submit my blog to the Bing search engine and I did not know how to submit my blog to the Bing search engine, you have helped me a lot.
Thank you very much.
Bing WordPress Plugin seems to be a good option for me. Since my website is poorly indexed on Bing. I needs to apply it on my website. Thank you for this information.
I think this is a very good plugin but you stated “ IMO this plugin is useful when your WordPress website is facing crawling and indexing issue in Bing search engine. Else, you are better off without this plugin.” so does that mean that if we are not facing this issues we shouldn’t use the plugin?
@Tammy
Exactly, thats what I meant. You should use it only if you facing crawling and indexing issue in Bing search engine.
It’s very useful information for Every new blogger who wants organic traffic for their new blog. Mostly new bloggers don’t focus on Bing traffic they focus only on Google traffic.
But Bing is also a very important search engine for getting initial traffic to any new blog.
Hello Harsh,
That’s cool information shared by you as I was already looking to connect my website with the bing webmaster tool.
So through you, I have come across some useful advantages of it. Thanks!!