Copilot SEO is Bing SEO, plus pages that are easy to quote. Copilot's web answers come from Bing. That holds for Copilot at work in Microsoft 365, Copilot Chat in Edge and Copilot in Bing alike. So the pages Bing can crawl, index and trust are the pages Copilot can cite. Microsoft's guidelines name the work. Send IndexNow pings, keep sitemaps clean, serve text in HTML, match your structured data to the page and answer first. Then measure it, free, in Bing Webmaster Tools' AI Performance report.
I'm Brenden House, and I run Searchmaxxed, an SEO and AI SEO agency. Every fact about Bing and Copilot below comes from Microsoft's own pages, which I read on 27 October 2026 (AEST).
In summary
Copilot can only cite what Bing has indexed, so Copilot SEO starts with getting Bing to crawl, index and trust your site.
| What to do | Where Microsoft says it |
|---|---|
| Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools and submit your XML sitemap | Bing Webmaster Guidelines |
| Send IndexNow pings when a URL is added, changed or deleted | Bing Webmaster Guidelines, rule 4 |
| Leave NOCACHE and NOARCHIVE off pages you want Copilot to quote | Bing Webmaster Guidelines, rule 10 |
| Add structured data that matches the visible page | Bing Webmaster Guidelines, rule 14 |
| Track citations and grounding queries in AI Performance | Bing blog, 10 February 2026 |
- Copilot at work matters most for B2B. Microsoft reported more than 30 million paid Microsoft 365 Copilot seats in July 2026, and Copilot searches Bing whenever web search is on.
- SEO fundamentals still apply. The Copilot extras are few: IndexNow, two robots directives, and facts that stand on their own.
- Schema can help Bing understand a page, though Microsoft promises no visibility for it, and markup that doesn't match the page can be ignored.
- A citation doesn't equal a click. Track citations in Bing Webmaster Tools and enquiries in your analytics.
What is Copilot SEO?
Copilot SEO is the work of getting Microsoft Copilot to use your pages as sources. In practice that means ranking in Bing first, then writing pages that Copilot can lift facts from cleanly, one paragraph at a time. Some people call it GEO (generative engine optimisation) or AEO (answer engine optimisation). Same work.
Three Microsoft terms keep coming up:
- Grounding is when an AI system pulls web content to support its answer. Microsoft's May 2026 post on the index calls the unit of value "groundable information (discrete, supportable facts with clear provenance)".
- A citation is a visible link to your page as a source inside an AI answer.
- A grounding query is the short phrase the AI used to retrieve your content, which Microsoft says are "not full user questions or prompts".
That May post sums up the shift. Traditional search, it says, asks "which pages should a user visit?" Grounding asks what information an AI system "can responsibly use to construct a response". Same crawler, same index, different test. Your page has to rank, and then each fact has to make sense once Copilot lifts it out alone.
Which search engine does Microsoft Copilot use?
Microsoft Copilot uses Bing. Microsoft's documentation says Copilot at work, when web search is on, "generates a search query that it sends to the Bing search service". The results shape the answer.
Here's where your pages can turn up, going by Microsoft's own descriptions:
| Copilot surface | Who uses it | How it reaches the web |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft Copilot at work (formerly Microsoft 365 Copilot) | Licensed staff inside Microsoft 365 | Sends a short generated query to the Bing search service |
| Microsoft Copilot Chat | Staff signed in with a work account, including in Edge | Same Bing web search, with the queries visible in its citations |
| Copilot Chat in Edge | Staff browsing in Edge with Copilot open | Summarises the open page and can search the web |
| Microsoft Copilot and AI summaries in Bing | The public | Grounded in Bing's index |
The AI Performance report names its own coverage: "Microsoft Copilot", "AI-generated summaries in Bing" and "select partner AI integrations". Which partners? Microsoft doesn't say, so I won't guess.
One detail here matters a lot. The query Copilot sends to Bing "consists of a few words informed by the user's prompt". It leaves out the full prompt, the user's documents and their identity. Picture a buyer typing a long, specific question about a procurement headache. Bing receives a few words. Your page has to win those few words, and you'll never see the long question behind them.
Why does Bing matter for B2B marketing?
Because your buyers' employer probably pays for Copilot. It sits inside Word, PowerPoint, Edge and the other Microsoft 365 apps on work machines. When an analyst asks it to shortlist suppliers, Bing runs the web search.
Microsoft supplies the scale. Its fiscal 2026 fourth-quarter release on 29 July 2026 quoted Satya Nadella: "Microsoft 365 Copilot reached over 30 million paid seats". In October 2025, Microsoft Advertising wrote that Copilot and other experiences built on Bing's index "handle billions of queries each month".
There's a catch in big organisations. Web search in Copilot at work is an admin setting. An IT admin can switch it off across the whole tenant, and then Copilot can't cite any website at all, yours included. For US government customers on the GCC or DoD clouds, Microsoft says web search "is turned off by default". Selling to US federal agencies? Copilot may never reach your site. Selling to Australian or US companies on standard Microsoft 365 is a different story, because there it usually can.
So who should care? Any company whose buyers sit at desks in Microsoft-run organisations, which covers most enterprise, manufacturing and public-sector purchasing teams. Public search share tells you little here. The searches that count happen inside a work tenant your analytics can't see.
"Does anybody use Bing anymore?"
People ask Google this a lot. For B2B, the honest answer is that your buyers may use Bing without ever opening bing.com. Every Copilot answer at work that pulls from the web runs through it. Check your own Bing data first. Then decide.
How do you get cited by Microsoft Copilot?
Copilot tends to cite pages that follow Bing's guidelines and state their facts so they stand alone. Microsoft's Bing Webmaster Guidelines now cover Copilot and grounding throughout. Rule 1 is blunt: "Bing and Copilot search experiences rely on the same core crawling, indexing, and ranking foundation as traditional search."
Here's the list, cut down to what a B2B site should act on:
| Microsoft's guideline | What it says | What to do on a B2B site |
|---|---|---|
| 2. Make URLs easy to discover | Use IndexNow, XML sitemaps, crawlable internal links and external links | Link every product, solution and industry page from your navigation or hub pages |
| 3. Use sitemaps for freshness | List only canonical URLs, with accurate lastmod | Strip redirected and noindexed URLs from the sitemap |
| 4. Notify Bing when URLs change | IndexNow helps "reduce outdated or incorrect URL references in Copilot responses" | Ping on every publish, update and delete |
| 6 and 7. Consolidate and redirect | Duplicates "reduce Bing's confidence"; use 301s, and 302s only for under two days | Fix regional and parameter duplicates before writing anything new |
| 8. Allow crawling and rendering | Avoid "hiding critical content behind client-side rendering" | Check your JavaScript site serves its text in the HTML |
| 10. Robots and meta directives | NOARCHIVE blocks Copilot use; NOCACHE limits it to URL, title and snippet | Remove both from pages you want quoted |
| 11 and 15. Clear, verifiable content | Facts should be "explicit" and visible on the URL itself | Put specs, integrations, compliance and pricing model in HTML text |
| 16. Define entities | Use "clear and consistent naming for people, organizations, products, and locations" | Name your product, company and modules the same way on every page |
| 17 and 18. One topic, key facts early | "Avoid long introductions before addressing the main topic" | Answer the page's question in the first paragraph |
Two of those rules surprised me. None of the top-ranking Copilot guides I read mention either.
NOARCHIVE and NOCACHE. Some sites set these and forget them. Microsoft says NOARCHIVE "prevents content from being used in Copilot responses and grounding results". NOCACHE, it says, "limits Copilot to using only the URL, title, and snippet". Added either one? Then Copilot has had almost nothing of yours to quote. Checking them takes five minutes with any crawler.
Redirects over canonicals. Bing's rule 7 says to "use redirects instead of canonical tags" when content moves. Lots of B2B sites keep old campaign and regional pages live, each with a canonical pointing somewhere else. Bing would rather you redirect them.
The guidelines also list what to stop: prompt injection, "misleading structured data", mass-generated content with no editorial review, and link schemes. Sites doing them "may experience reduced rankings, suppressed grounding visibility" or removal from the index.
How should you write B2B pages for Copilot?
Write each page so any one paragraph can be quoted without the rest. Microsoft Advertising's October 2025 guide explains why. Assistants like Copilot break pages into smaller pieces, "a process called parsing". Copilot then ranks those pieces and assembles them into answers.
Its advice, applied to B2B:
- Make the title, H1 and meta description agree, because Microsoft says that alignment "improves both discoverability and confidence signals for AI systems".
- Write headings as the question a buyer asks, such as "Does this integrate with SAP?", never "Learn more".
- Answer with a measurable fact. Microsoft's own example swaps "quiet dishwasher" for "42 dB".
- Put features, plans and integrations in lists and comparison tables.
- Keep key answers out of tabs, accordions, PDFs and images, since Microsoft warns that "AI systems may not render hidden content".
That last point hits B2B hardest. Spec sheets, security documents and case studies often live in gated PDFs. Copilot can't quote what it can't read.
What does Microsoft say about schema markup for Copilot?
Microsoft says structured data may help Copilot understand a page, but it promises nothing for it. Rule 14 says structured data "may support clearer grounding", then says it offers no promise of visibility or grounding traffic. The same rule adds: "Markup must accurately reflect visible content."
Microsoft Advertising sounds warmer. It describes schema as code "that helps search engines and AI systems understand your content". It recommends JSON-LD, with schema.org types such as product, review, FAQ and event. The guidelines carry the warning. Misleading markup "may be ignored and can affect trust and eligibility for enhanced features."
My read? Add schema, keep it accurate and expect nothing from it on a weak page. On a B2B site the useful types are Organization, Product or SoftwareApplication, and Article, with FAQPage only where the questions sit visibly on the page. Our schema markup guide covers each type.
What is IndexNow, and do you need it for Copilot?
IndexNow is a free, open protocol that lets your site tell search engines a URL has changed, so they don't wait for a crawl. You need it for Copilot because Microsoft asks for it by name. Timely notifications, its guidelines say, "help Bing refresh the index and reduce outdated or incorrect URL references in Copilot responses".
The practical facts, from Microsoft and IndexNow.org:
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| What triggers a ping? | A URL added, updated or removed |
| How many URLs per request? | Up to 10,000 in one POST request |
| Which engines take part? | Amazon, Bing, Naver, Seznam.cz, Yandex and Yep, per IndexNow.org's endpoint list |
| Does one ping reach them all? | Yes. A submission to one endpoint "will be shared across all IndexNow-enabled search engines" |
| Batch or stream? | Microsoft says "avoid batch submissions when possible" and prefers streaming |
| How do you prove you own the site? | Host a key file on your domain, unless your CMS or plugin handles it |
Google isn't on IndexNow.org's endpoint list. Keep your sitemap and Search Console routine for Google exactly as it is, and add IndexNow on top for Bing and Copilot. Setup is often a switch. Microsoft's IndexNow page says many content management systems and cloud delivery networks "already offer built-in support". Its adopter list includes Cloudflare, Wix, Duda, Yoast, Rank Math, AIOSEO and SEOPress.
On our own site, every release pings IndexNow for each changed URL, in the same pass as our Google sitemap resubmission. I'd copy that setup for any B2B site that changes pricing, features or compliance pages often. A stale Copilot answer about your security certifications costs more than a missing one.
What does Bing Webmaster Tools' AI Performance report show?
The AI Performance report shows how often Copilot, Bing's AI summaries and partner AI products cite your pages. It lists the URLs that earned citations and the grounding queries behind them. Microsoft launched it in public preview on 10 February 2026, calling it "an early step toward Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) tooling".
| Metric | What Microsoft says it means | How a B2B team can use it |
|---|---|---|
| Total citations | Times your content showed as a source in AI answers | Watch the trend after each release |
| Average cited pages | Unique pages cited per day, averaged over the range | See whether citations spread or sit on one page |
| Grounding queries | "The key phrases the AI used when retrieving content" | Find the phrases to build pages around |
| Page-level citations | Citation counts per URL | Spot product pages that never earn a citation |
| Intents (added June 2026) | Groups queries into types such as Commercial, Research and Local | Check that commercial pages earn commercial citations |
| Topics (added June 2026) | Clusters related grounding queries into themes | Find topic gaps across a product line |
| Citation Share (added June 2026) | Your share of all citations for a grounding query | See whether you own a phrase or share it |
| Compare (added June 2026) | Overlays a previous period | Check a release against the month before |
The last four arrived on 16 June 2026. Citation Share won't tell you who the other sites are; Microsoft says it "does not expose competitor domains".
Read the limits before reporting on it. Microsoft says the data "represents a sample of overall citation activity", that low citation counts "may not surface", and that totals can differ between views. Microsoft adds that a citation "does not represent traffic, clicks, or user engagement". Date ranges run 7 days, 30 days, 3 months or custom. Data refreshes daily. Exports come as CSV or Excel.
Even so, it's the best free first-party look at an AI engine I know of. I haven't seen a comparable report for site owners from ChatGPT or Perplexity. It only shows Microsoft's side.
How do you find the exact queries Copilot sends to Bing?
Ask Copilot Chat your buyer's question, then open the citations under the answer. Microsoft says that section "shows the exact web search queries (derived from the user's prompt)" that went to Bing. Those few words are the searches you need to rank for.
It's the most useful Copilot research step I know, and it's free if anyone on your team has Copilot Chat at work. Here's how we'd run it:
- Write 15 to 30 prompts in your buyers' words. Mix shortlist prompts ("best procurement software for mid-size manufacturers") with problem prompts ("how do we cut supplier onboarding time").
- Run each in Copilot Chat, web content on.
- Copy the web search queries from the citations right away, because Microsoft says they stay "in the chat thread for 24 hours" only.
- Search each query in Bing and note which sites rank in the top results.
- Compare that list with your grounding queries.
That gap is your content plan. A query Copilot sends that never shows up in your grounding queries means a page you don't have yet, or one Bing doesn't trust. Two limits apply. Microsoft says the query citations appear only in Copilot Chat, not in the Copilot pane inside Word or PowerPoint. And answers shift between runs, so repeat the test monthly.
How do you measure traffic from Copilot?
Measure Copilot in two places: citations in Bing Webmaster Tools, and visits and enquiries in your analytics. Microsoft's guidelines say content "may appear as impressions, citations, or grounding references in Copilot responses" without a click. And "a decline in clicks does not always indicate a loss of visibility."
Report three numbers each month, starting with citations from AI Performance. Then Copilot and Bing visits in GA4, plus the enquiries those visits turn into, which is the number your finance team will ask about. Check those visits for bots.
Here's what we found on an enterprise B2B client's account. A client's GA4 showed AI-assistant visits jump from 354 to 6,050 in a month. Almost none of it was real. About 5,700 came in three one-hour bursts: same 1920x1080 desktop Chrome, all new users, no referrer, about 20 seconds each, landing on two pages. Real AI traffic was 385 sessions against 354 the month before, roughly flat.
That's a seventeenfold win that never happened. Our guide on how to track AI visibility sets out the full measurement setup across ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini and Copilot.
Is Bing SEO different from Google SEO?
Mostly, no. Microsoft says Bing and Copilot "rely on the same core crawling, indexing, and ranking foundation as traditional search". The differences come down to a short list of Bing tools and rules.
| Area | What Bing asks for, in Microsoft's words |
|---|---|
| Change alerts | IndexNow for added, updated and removed URLs |
| Freshness | Accurate lastmod values and ETag headers "help Bing detect content changes more reliably" |
| Temporary moves | 302 redirects "only for very short-term changes (less than 2 days)" |
| Moved content | "Use redirects instead of canonical tags" |
| AI quoting | NOARCHIVE and NOCACHE limit or block Copilot use |
| Snippet control | The data-snippet attribute sets which text Bing may display or cite |
| AI reporting | AI Performance report with grounding queries and Citation Share |
If your Google SEO is in good shape, Bing usually needs a day of setup and a few header fixes. After that it's the same ongoing work. Watch your crawl rules, though, because Microsoft lists "blocking Bingbot in your robots.txt file" among the things to avoid. Which bots should you let in? Our guide on whether to block AI crawlers covers each one.
A worked example: a B2B SaaS company in Copilot
Take a procurement software company that sells to manufacturers in Australia and the US, and that Copilot barely quotes. Its buyers are operations and finance leads at companies that run on Microsoft 365. The company and steps are illustrative, but every rule behind them comes from the Microsoft pages above.
| Week | What we'd check or change | The Microsoft rule behind it |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Verify the site in Bing Webmaster Tools, submit a canonical-only sitemap, turn on IndexNow | Guidelines 2, 3 and 4 |
| 1 | Check HTTP headers and meta tags for NOARCHIVE and NOCACHE on product pages | Guideline 10 |
| 2 | Run 20 buyer prompts in Copilot Chat and copy the Bing queries it sends | Copilot web search query citations |
| 2 | Move the integration list and security answers out of PDFs and tabs into HTML | Microsoft Advertising, October 2025 |
| 3 | Rewrite the top product and industry pages answer-first, one topic each | Guidelines 15, 17 and 18 |
| 3 | Add Organization and SoftwareApplication schema that matches the page | Guideline 14 |
| 4 | Read AI Performance: grounding queries, cited pages, Intents, Citation Share | Bing blog, February and June 2026 |
What would week two likely show? Copilot sending Bing short category phrases like "procurement software manufacturing", while the product pages target the brand name. That's a page gap. You can close it in a month.
Where does Searchmaxxed fit?
Searchmaxxed is an SEO and AI SEO agency for enterprise, B2B SaaS, venture-backed, manufacturing and public-sector companies. We do technical SEO, content, link building, digital PR, GEO, AEO and LLM SEO. The aim: rank in Google, and have ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and Google's AI answers name you for the searches that bring pipeline. Our AI search optimisation service sets out the work in full.
Everything in the Copilot checklist above is standard technical and on-page SEO. We already do it: XML sitemaps, crawl and indexing fixes, redirects, canonical tags, schema markup and answer-first pages, built, shipped and measured. The packages differ in volume:
| Package | Who it suits | What it includes |
|---|---|---|
| Growth System | A company growing in one or two markets | 30 page releases a month, work on up to 4 existing pages, one qualified link action, AI visibility tracking |
| Agentic Search Engineering | A competitive or national category | 50 page releases a month, comparison, industry and integration page families, digital PR and link campaigns, AI answer tracking across ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews |
| Custom & Enterprise | Several brands, several markets or a large site | Multiple markets, dedicated engineering, custom reporting and original first-party research |
One honest note. The AI answer tracking in Agentic Search Engineering names ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity and AI Overviews, and leaves Copilot out. If Copilot is the engine your buyers lean on most, raise it on the first call so the scope covers it.
Here's how we do it. We build on a website you own, our Agentic Website. AI agents pull your Search Console and GA4 data, read the live results and check what AI answers say about you and your competitors. That feeds the Managed Search Loop, which shows which page, fix or link should bring in the most enquiries next. We build it, check the live page and measure what changed. Off your site, the Off-Page Source Layer builds the links, digital PR and mentions that AI answers draw on.
Searchmaxxed's work has generated more than A$10 million in revenue through search for its clients.
Is Searchmaxxed right for you?
We suit marketing and growth teams at B2B companies whose buyers work in Microsoft 365 and search Google too. You want Bing, Copilot and Google handled in one place, with page releases you can count.
| Searchmaxxed is a good fit if | Look elsewhere if |
|---|---|
| Your buyers work in Microsoft-run companies and use Copilot | You only need Bing Webmaster Tools and IndexNow set up once |
| You want Bing, Copilot, Google and ChatGPT work from one team | Your buyers sit in US government clouds, where Copilot's web search starts switched off |
| You want pages built and shipped every month | You want reports, not changes to your site |
| You want to own your site, repository, content and data | You want strategy advice with no changes to your site |
| You compete in a crowded or multi-market category | You need search to fill this month's pipeline on its own |
In the right-hand column? A developer with an afternoon and this guide can do the Bing setup, and that may be all you need.
Frequently asked questions
Does Microsoft Copilot use Bing or Google?
Microsoft Copilot uses Bing. When web search is on, Microsoft says Copilot at work generates a short query and "sends it to Bing". Ranking in Bing comes first.
What is the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools?
It's a free report that shows how often Microsoft Copilot, Bing's AI summaries and select partner AI products cite your pages. It covers total citations, cited pages and grounding queries, plus Intents, Topics, Citation Share and Compare since June 2026. The data is a daily-refreshed sample.
Does IndexNow work with Google?
No. Google isn't on IndexNow.org's list of participating endpoints, which I checked on 27 October 2026. IndexNow reaches Bing, Amazon, Naver, Seznam.cz, Yandex and Yep, so keep sitemaps and Search Console for Google.
Does schema markup help with Copilot?
It can help Bing understand a page. Microsoft's guidelines say structured data "may support clearer grounding" but promise no visibility. Markup "must accurately reflect visible content", and misleading markup may be ignored.
Can you see what people ask Copilot about your brand?
Partly. AI Performance shows grounding queries, which are short grouped phrases and "not full user questions or prompts". For your own test prompts, Copilot Chat's citations show the exact Bing queries for 24 hours.
Do Copilot citations bring traffic?
Sometimes. Microsoft says a citation "does not represent traffic, clicks, or user engagement". Track citations in Bing Webmaster Tools, and visits and enquiries in your analytics. Check AI traffic in GA4 for bots before you report it.
Can a company stop Copilot from using the web?
Yes. An IT admin can turn off web search for Copilot across a Microsoft 365 tenant, and staff then get no web results. For US government GCC and DoD customers, it starts off by default.
What should you do next?
This week, verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools, turn on IndexNow and check your product pages for NOARCHIVE and NOCACHE. Then open AI Performance and see which pages Copilot already cites, because that tells you where you stand before you change anything. If you'd like us to scope the Bing, Copilot and Google work for your site, let's talk pricing.