Bing’s recently released, updated webmaster tools give you great new features. Here are the highlights:
1. URL Inspection Tool – Just like Google’s URL Inspection Tool, this tool reports on the status of the URL from Bing’s perspective. But, there is one difference. Unlike Google, there is no focus on AMP. This tool gives you more overall usable data points. You can see the schema markup listed on the page; SEO tips, like missing image alt tags when the URL was first discovered by Bingbot; and more.
Image Source: Bing Webmaster Tools
2. Robots.txt Tester – This tool tests your robots.txt file. Bing explains, “Robots.txt Tester helps Webmasters to analyze their robots.txt file and highlight the issues that would prevent them from getting optimally crawled by Bing and other robots.”
3. Site Scan – This tool acts just like the typical scan tool. It allows you to scan your site for technical SEO issues. However, it is a step away from Google’s tool offerings. Bing claims, “Site Scan is an on-demand site audit tool that crawls your site and checks for common technical SEO issues. Fixing these issues will make your website search engine and user friendly. With this tool, you can improve your website performance not only on Bing but on other search engines as well.”
Image Source: Bing Webmaster Tools
The tool is easy to use and reports on all the typical parameters. The only issue with this tool is that the scan is very slow. You may even have to wait until the next day for your results via email.
Actionable Strategy
If you haven’t used Bing’s Webmaster Tools yet, we recommend you give them a try. It just takes a couple of clicks to import sites from Google Search Console, and Bing has announced that they are still updating these tools. We will keep you in the loop.