---
schema_version: "newruntime-reader-dossiers-v1"
type: "reader_dossier"
slug: "bingbot"
kind: "search"
operator: "Microsoft"
researched_at: "2026-10-23"
confidence: "high"
json_url: "https://newruntime.com/readers/bingbot.json"
canonical_url: "https://newruntime.com/readers/bingbot/"
---

# Bingbot

> Microsoft's main crawler collecting documents for the Bing search index (deployed 2010, successor to msnbot). Bing's index also underlies Copilot and other engines that license Bing results.

## Dossier

- Kind: Search engines
- Operator: Microsoft (https://www.bing.com/)
- Documentation: none found
- robots.txt tokens: bingbot
- Feeds: search index
- Respects robots.txt: Yes, per its documentation. Blockable via robots.txt bingbot group; Bing Webmaster help page did not render for us (JS-only), so robots details come from Wikipedia/Bing blog.
- Verification: Published IP ranges and reverse DNS (https://www.bing.com/toolbox/bingbot.json)
- Labels matched in our logs: bingbot

## Why it matters to New Runtime (our interpretation)

Bing's index feeds Copilot and several AI-answer engines, so Bingbot crawling is upstream of many machine readers beyond Bing itself.

## Observed behaviour

- Baseline 2026-10-23 (93-day window): 3,126 requests on 90 days; first seen 2026-07-23, last seen 2026-10-23; Regular.
- Reading mix (crawler journeys): 77 content reads, 7 feed or discovery reads, 2 machine-consumption reads; 69 unique materials.
- Identity check: verified 100, claimed unverified 5 requests.
- Live numbers: https://newruntime.com/bot-traffic-history.json and https://newruntime.com/crawler-journeys.json

## Sources

- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bingbot
- https://blogs.bing.com/webmaster/2012/08/31/how-to-verify-that-bingbot-is-bingbot
- https://www.bing.com/toolbox/bingbot.json

Identity: A family name is what a client claims in its user agent. It is verified only when its request came from the operator's published IP ranges or passed forward-confirmed reverse DNS, as reported per family in /crawler-journeys.json. Anyone can claim any name.

All dossiers: https://newruntime.com/readers.md