Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools

Google Search Console (GSC) and Bing Webmaster Tools (BWT) are free tools from Google and Microsoft. They tell you how search engines crawl, index, and rank your website. You do not need a paid subscription. You do not need any special technical skills to get started. These tools are your direct line of communication with the two biggest search engines in the world.

Think of them like this: your website is a shop, and search engines are the map that tells people how to find it. GSC and BWT tell you whether the map has your address right, whether the door is open, and whether people are actually finding you.

Quick Summary

• GSC shows how your site performs in Google search. BWT shows the same for Bing, including Copilot AI results.
• Both tools are completely free with no premium tiers or hidden costs.
• Bing reaches 140 million daily active searchers (Microsoft, April 2024) and holds 12% of global desktop search.
• The fastest way to set up BWT is to import your data directly from your existing GSC account.
• Use both tools together. They catch different errors, and ignoring Bing means ignoring 28% of US search queries.

Why These Tools Matter

Most marketers focus 100% of their attention on Google. That is understandable. Google holds roughly 90% of global search market share. But Bing and Microsoft Search properties account for 28.3% of all search queries in the United States (Statista, 2024). For desktop searches specifically, Bing captures about 12% globally.

That is not a small number. For a site getting 10,000 monthly visitors from Google, ignoring Bing could mean missing 1,000 to 3,000 additional free visitors every month.

More importantly, B2B companies often see higher conversion rates from Bing. The reason: Bing's audience skews older, more affluent, and more likely to be using a corporate Windows laptop. If you sell software, professional services, or anything targeting working adults, Bing traffic converts better than Google traffic in many cases.

What Google Search Console Does

GSC connects your website to Google's index. It shows you:

• Which search queries bring people to your site (and how many click through)
• Which pages are indexed and which are not
• Crawl errors that stop Google from reading your pages
• Core Web Vitals scores (speed and user experience metrics)
• Manual penalties if Google has flagged your site for spam

The most important report in GSC is the Performance report. It shows your clicks, impressions (how many times your page appeared in search results), click-through rate (CTR, the percentage of people who saw your result and clicked it), and average position for every query and page.

Key GSC Terms Explained

• Impressions: How many times your page appeared in Google search results (even if users did not see it because they did not scroll far enough).
• Clicks: How many times users actually clicked your result.
• CTR (Click-Through Rate): Clicks divided by impressions. A CTR of 3% means 3 out of every 100 people who saw your result clicked it.
• Average Position: Your typical ranking. Position 1 is the top result. Position 10 is the last result on page 1.
• Index Coverage: Which pages Google has added to its database and which it has skipped or blocked.

What Bing Webmaster Tools Does

BWT is Microsoft's equivalent of GSC. It covers your site's performance across Bing web search, Microsoft Copilot (AI chat), Bing News, Bing Images, and Bing Videos. That last point matters more every year: BWT is one of the only tools that shows you how your content appears in AI-generated search results.

Key features unique to BWT:

• IndexNow: A free protocol that instantly notifies Bing (and other compatible search engines) when you publish or update content. No waiting days for the crawler to discover it.
• Backlink Analysis for Competitors: You can check the backlinks pointing to any website, not just your own. GSC only shows your own backlinks.
• Free Microsoft Clarity Integration: Clarity is Microsoft's heatmap tool (similar to Hotjar). BWT connects to it directly so you can see both search performance and on-page user behavior in one place.
• AI Performance Report: Shows how your content appears as a citation in Bing Copilot responses. This is a feature GSC does not yet offer.
• SEO Reports with Severity Levels: BWT flags on-page issues as low, moderate, or high severity. GSC does not categorize issues this way.

In October 2024, Bing extended its Search Performance history to 16 months, matching GSC's data range for the first time. You can now see longer trends without switching tools.

How the Two Tools Compare

Both tools share these features:

• Search performance reports (clicks, impressions, CTR, position)
• URL inspection (check if a specific page is indexed)
• Sitemap submission
• Crawl error reports
• Personalized SEO recommendations

BWT-only features: IndexNow, competitor backlink data, AI citation tracking, Microsoft Clarity integration, multi-format sitemap support (XML, RSS, Atom, plain text).

GSC-only features: Rendered page view (see how Googlebot actually renders your JavaScript), Google Analytics integration, AMP report, rich results testing.

Setting Up Both Tools (Step by Step)

Google Search Console Setup

1. Go to search.google.com/search-console
2. Sign in with a Google account
3. Click "Add property" and enter your website URL
4. Verify ownership, the easiest method is adding a meta tag to your homepage <head> section, or use your domain registrar (Google verifies via DNS automatically for many registrars)
5. Submit your XML sitemap (usually at yoursite.com/sitemap.xml)

Bing Webmaster Tools Setup (The Fast Way)

1. Go to bing.com/webmasters
2. Sign in with a Microsoft account
3. Click "Import from Google Search Console"
4. Sign in to Google, BWT pulls your verified sites and sitemaps automatically
5. Done. This takes under 2 minutes if you already have GSC set up.

The Workflow: How to Use Both Tools Each Month

Step 1: Fix Crawl Errors First

Before anything else, check the Coverage report in GSC and the Crawl Information report in BWT. Crawl errors mean search engines cannot read your pages. You cannot rank pages that are not indexed.

Common errors to fix:

• 404 errors: Pages that return "not found." Either restore the page or set up a redirect.
• Blocked by robots.txt: You accidentally blocked search engines from crawling important pages.
• Redirect loops: Page A redirects to page B, which redirects back to page A.
• Soft 404s: Pages that say "no results found" but return a 200 OK status instead of a 404.

Step 2: Find Your "Almost There" Pages

In GSC's Performance report, filter for pages with:

• Average position between 8 and 20 (close to page 1)
• CTR below 2% (people see your result but do not click)

These pages are your biggest opportunity. A small improvement, a better title tag, a clearer meta description, or adding 3-4 new paragraphs, can push them from position 12 to position 6. That move typically triples your organic traffic on that page.

Step 3: Submit New Content Immediately

Every time you publish a new page or update an existing one:

• In GSC: Use the URL Inspection tool and click "Request indexing"
• In BWT: Use IndexNow. If your site runs on WordPress with Yoast or RankMath, these plugins submit to IndexNow automatically every time you publish.

IndexNow is BWT's biggest practical advantage over GSC. Pages submitted via IndexNow typically appear in Bing within hours. GSC's manual indexing request can take days.

Real Company Examples

HubSpot, Fixing GSC Coverage Errors (2023) HubSpot's SEO team documented a process where they used GSC to identify 4,000+ "discovered but not indexed" pages on their blog. By fixing internal linking and removing thin content pages, they moved most of those pages into "indexed" status within 90 days. The result was a 27% increase in organic impressions from pages that had previously been invisible in search results.

Kinsta, Bing Traffic Optimization (2024) Kinsta, a managed WordPress hosting company, published data showing that after properly configuring BWT and implementing IndexNow, their Bing organic traffic grew by 34% over six months. Key actions: submitting a complete sitemap, fixing 200+ crawl errors BWT flagged that GSC had not caught, and using BWT's keyword research tool to find Bing-specific search terms their content was not targeting.

The URL Inspection Tool: Your Diagnostic Tool

Both GSC and BWT have a URL Inspection tool. You paste in any URL from your site and it tells you:

• Is this page indexed?
• When was it last crawled?
• What HTTP status code did the crawler receive?
• Are there any structured data errors (schema markup problems)?
• What does the page look like to the crawler?

BWT's URL Inspection goes one step further: it flags on-page SEO issues directly, like missing meta descriptions, duplicate title tags, and images without alt text. GSC focuses more on technical crawling status and structured data.

Use URL Inspection whenever:

• A new page is not showing up in search results after a week
• A page drops suddenly in rankings
• You want to verify a redirect is working correctly

IndexNow: The Feature Most Marketers Miss

IndexNow is a protocol that BWT introduced and Google has since adopted in a limited way. When you publish or update a page, IndexNow sends an instant notification to participating search engines (Bing, Yandex, and others). They crawl your updated page within hours instead of waiting for their regular crawl schedule.

For high-publishing sites (news, e-commerce, blogs), this matters a lot. Bing's standard crawl schedule for many sites is every few days. IndexNow collapses that wait to near-zero.

How to implement IndexNow:

• WordPress users: Install Yoast SEO or RankMath. Both plugins implement IndexNow automatically. No code needed.
• Manual implementation: Add a simple API call to your publishing workflow. The BWT documentation shows the exact endpoint and format.
• Site platforms: Wix, Squarespace, and Webflow have started adding native IndexNow support.

Understanding Your Search Performance Data

When you look at the data in either tool, here is how to interpret what you see.

High Impressions, Low CTR

Your page ranks for the query but people are not clicking. Fix: rewrite your title tag and meta description to be more specific and compelling. Add the year (e.g., "Best Tools for 2025") or a clear benefit (e.g., "Free Guide").

Low Impressions for a Target Keyword

Your page is not ranking for that keyword at all. Fix: check if the page is indexed, improve the content depth, and build internal links from other pages on your site to this one.

Declining Average Position

Your rankings are dropping. Possible causes: a competitor improved their content, Google or Bing updated their algorithm, or your page has technical issues (slow load time, crawl errors).

Sudden Traffic Drop on One Page

Use URL Inspection to check if the page is still indexed. Check for accidental robots.txt blocks. Check if you recently changed the URL without setting up a redirect.

The One-Line Takeaway

If you only use Google Search Console, you are optimizing half your search presence and leaving Bing's 140 million daily users to find your competitors instead.