Key Takeaways
- The Bing URL Inspection Tool diagnoses how Bing crawled, indexed, and interpreted a specific URL from a verified website.
- Its Index, SEO, and Markup cards reveal index status, crawl details, HTTP responses, HTML, SEO findings, and supported structured markup issues.
- The Indexed URL view reflects earlier processing, while Live URL sends a fresh Bingbot request to test current access and page conditions.
- The tool supports troubleshooting and separate indexing requests, but neither a Live URL test nor submission guarantees indexing or ranking.
Bing URL Inspection Tool is a page-level diagnostic utility inside Bing Webmaster Tools that shows how Bing has crawled, indexed, and interpreted a specific URL from a verified website. It helps website owners, developers, and SEO professionals investigate why a page is missing from Bing, identify crawl or SEO problems, inspect structured markup, and test what Bingbot can currently access.
Microsoft formally introduced Bing Webmaster Tools’ URL Inspection Tool in September 2020, after the feature had appeared in beta earlier that year. The tool was meant to answer practical questions such as why a URL cannot be indexed and whether recently updated content can be checked before requesting another crawl. It separates its findings into Index, SEO, and Markup cards and also provides a Live URL test.
It is broadly comparable to Google Search Console’s URL Inspection Tool, although the information and diagnostic features provided by the two platforms differ. A useful feature of Bing Webmaster Tools is the ability to expand certain SEO errors to view the affected HTML and specific guidance for resolving the issue.
How to Use the Bing URL Inspection Tool
The website must first be added and verified in Bing Webmaster Tools. Website verification is covered separately in the Bing Webmaster Tools glossary entry.
To inspect a page:
- Sign in to Bing Webmaster Tools.
- Select the verified website.
- Open URL Inspection from the navigation.
- Enter the complete URL belonging to that website.
- Run the inspection and review the Index, SEO, and Markup cards.
- Use Live URL when the current version of the page needs to be tested.
Bing also keeps the 10 most recently inspected URLs available for convenient repeat checks. Only URLs belonging to the currently selected verified domain can be inspected.
Indexed URL vs. Live URL
The standard inspection shows information Bing already has about the URL from its crawling and indexing systems. It is useful for determining whether the page is indexed and reviewing the version Bing previously processed.
Live URL sends a fresh request to Bingbot and checks what Bing can access at that moment. This is useful after changing a page, fixing a server problem, or modifying crawl-related settings.
Running a Live URL test does not itself request indexing. It is a diagnostic crawl. An indexing request can be made separately, subject to the available URL-submission quota.
What Is the Bing URL Inspection Tool Used For?
The Bing URL Inspection Tool is mainly used to diagnose page-level indexing, crawling, SEO, and markup issues for a specific URL. It helps website owners move from simply seeing that a page has an issue to understanding what Bing detected and what may need to be fixed next.
- Check Index Status: Determine whether Bing currently reports the URL as indexed and examine information about its discovery, crawling, and indexing.
- Diagnose Crawl Problems: Investigate circumstances preventing Bingbot from successfully retrieving or processing a page, including HTTP or access-related problems.
- Inspect HTTP Responses and HTML: Review the HTTP response information and HTML Bing received when it crawled the URL.
- Find SEO Issues: The SEO card reports notices, errors, and warnings based on Bing’s SEO checks. Issues are assigned different priority levels, and some findings include a How to fix option and the corresponding HTML.
- Inspect Structured Markup: The Markup card identifies supported structured-data formats and reports implementation problems that may prevent Bing from understanding the markup correctly.
- Test the Current Page: Live URL provides a fresh view of the page and can reveal whether Bingbot is currently encountering access, SEO, or markup problems.
- Request Indexing: After publishing or correcting a page, an eligible URL can be submitted for indexing consideration. Bing says its systems prioritize these indexing requests, but submission does not guarantee that a page will be indexed or ranked. For frequent or large-scale URL updates, Bing currently recommends IndexNow rather than relying on repeated manual URL submissions.
Important Data and Diagnostic Cards to Check
The URL Inspection report contains several types of information. These are better treated as diagnostic states and details rather than conventional performance metrics.
Index Card
The Index Card is usually the first place to check when investigating an indexing problem. It can show:
- index status;
- discovery details, including when Bing found the URL and where it was discovered;
- crawl information and crawl date;
- indexing information;
- HTTP response details and status codes;
- HTML received by Bing;
- indexing or crawl errors;
- recommended corrective actions.
HTTP responses can reveal whether the server returned a successful 2xx response, a 3xx redirect, a 4xx client error, or a 5xx server error.
If a page cannot be indexed, Bing may recommend actions such as requesting indexing, correcting robots.txt access, or contacting support, depending on the problem detected.
SEO Card
The SEO Card scans the page against Bing’s SEO best practices and groups findings into errors, warnings, and notices.
Selecting an issue can show a more detailed explanation, highlight the corresponding HTML, and provide suggested steps for correcting it. This can make the tool useful for identifying certain page-level problems without manually inspecting the entire source code.
Markup Card
The Markup Card checks whether supported markup is implemented in a form Bing can interpret. Current supported formats include:
- JSON-LD
- HTML Microdata
- Microformats
- Open Graph
The Markup Card is specifically a markup-inspection feature and does not validate ordinary HTML syntax across the webpage.
Live URL
Live URL checks what Bingbot can retrieve now, rather than relying only on information stored from an earlier crawl. If access is prevented by a block or other technical constraint, the tool reports the problem. It also performs fresh SEO and markup checks, making it useful after corrections have been deployed.
Live URL does not follow redirects. If the tested URL redirects, Bing reports the redirect and destination URL. The destination URL can then be inspected separately if needed.
Canonical relationships and mobile usability may still need to be investigated with other Bing tools and page-level checks. Bing does not currently document a dedicated declared-versus-selected canonical field or a mobile-friendliness score as part of URL Inspection.
Frequently Asked Questions
How is the indexed information different from the Live URL test?
Indexed information reflects what Bing already knows from earlier crawling and processing. Live URL fetches the page again and shows what Bingbot can currently access.
Can Bing URL Inspection help diagnose canonical problems?
It can provide useful indexing and SEO information about the URL, but Bing does not currently document a dedicated declared-versus-selected canonical comparison in URL Inspection. Canonical issues may also require checking the HTML and Site Explorer.
Why does Bing URL Inspection show that a page cannot be crawled?
Possible causes include robots.txt restrictions, HTTP errors, server failures, DNS problems, or other access constraints. The specific reported problem should be resolved before requesting another crawl.
Does Bing URL Inspection check mobile-friendliness?
Microsoft’s current URL Inspection documentation does not list mobile-friendliness as a URL Inspection diagnostic. Bing provides a separate Mobile Friendliness Test Tool for this purpose.
Is it possible to inspect URLs from a competitor’s website?
No, the inspected URL must belong to the domain selected and verified in the Bing Webmaster Tools account. URL Inspection is therefore a site-diagnostic tool rather than a competitor-analysis tool.
Does requesting indexing guarantee that Bing will index the page?
Requesting indexing asks Bing to prioritize processing the URL, but Bing still determines whether the page should ultimately be crawled, indexed, and shown in search results.
