How to Get Your Business on Bing, Bing Maps and Copilot (UK Guide)

You’ve sorted your Google Business Profile. Then a customer says they found you “on Bing”, or someone asks whether you show up in Copilot, and you realise you’ve never looked. Is it worth an afternoon?

For most local businesses, yes. It’s free, and it comes down to two jobs. Your listing goes in Bing Places for Business, which controls what shows on Bing search and Bing Maps. Your website goes in Bing Webmaster Tools, which tells Bing your site exists and shows whether Bing can read it. Allow an hour or so, then up to about two weeks after verification while Microsoft publishes the listing. At the end you’ll have a verified listing on Bing Maps, a verified site with a sitemap submitted, and a note of what Bing and Copilot say when someone asks about your trade in your town.

The steps follow Microsoft’s help pages as of 1 October 2026. Bing Places was relaunched in October 2025, so older screenshots won’t match, and button names may change again.

Is Bing worth it for a UK business?

On raw numbers, Bing is small. Statcounter recorded it at 6.08% of UK searches in September 2026, against Google’s 91.39%. Split by device, the picture changes: 18.33% of UK desktop searches (nearly one in five) but 0.43% on mobile. Statcounter samples sites carrying its tracking code, so these are estimates. If your customers search at a desk, say an office manager booking a contractor, Bing isn’t a rounding error. If they only use their phones, it matters far less.

The bigger reason is Microsoft Copilot. Microsoft’s Bing Webmaster Guidelines say “Bing and Copilot search experiences rely on the same core crawling, indexing, and ranking foundation as traditional search”, and a Microsoft Advertising post from October 2025 describes Copilot as “Powered by Bing’s search index”. If Bing can’t find or read your website, Copilot has less to work with too. DuckDuckGo also says it largely sources its traditional links from Bing, and Yahoo’s UK search results are labelled “Powered by Bing” (we checked on 1 October 2026). Yahoo is small, at 1.32% of UK searches in Statcounter’s September figures, but it means one Bing set-up covers it too.

Your listing is a narrower story. Microsoft says registering with Bing Places helps keep your address, hours and contact details current and “eligible for inclusion in AI-generated responses”. Its relaunch post lists deeper Copilot integration as work still to come, and Microsoft hasn’t spelled out how Copilot uses Bing Places listings. Be wary of anyone promising that a Bing listing will get you recommended by Copilot.

ChatGPT is murkier. OpenAI’s help page on ChatGPT search says it “sometimes partners with other search providers” and lists Microsoft’s privacy statement among them, without naming Bing. A small early-2025 study by Seer Interactive found 87% of citations from ChatGPT’s search feature (then called SearchGPT) matched Bing’s top 20 results; a larger 2026 replication found about 27%. So Bing plausibly matters for ChatGPT, but nobody has shown how much (more in why ChatGPT recommends your competitor).

Before you start

Bing Places is available in the UK. Have these ready:

• An account the business controls. Bing Places lets you sign in with a Microsoft account, a work account, Google or Facebook. Any listing you claim or create is tied to the email address you sign in with, so pick one that won’t leave when a member of staff or an agency does.
• A real address you operate from: not a PO Box, and not a mailing address you don’t trade from. If customers don’t visit you, you can hide it later, but Bing still needs it to verify you.
• Access to the business phone, post, email and text messages. Verification sends a PIN by one of these.
• Your website address, and the details of whoever manages your site.
• A verified Google Business Profile, if you want the faster import route in Step 2. If you haven’t got one yet, our guide to setting up a Google Business Profile walks you through it.
• A few photos: outside, inside, your work or services, and your logo.

Step 1: Check whether Bing already lists you

Search for your business name and town on Bing, then on Bing Maps. Bing builds listings from many sources, not just owners, so you may already be there.

Duplicates cause trouble: Microsoft disables editing on any listing it marks as a duplicate and advises claiming the published listing rather than starting another. Note every version you find, including old addresses or names.

Done when: you know whether Bing has zero, one or several listings for you.

Step 2: Add your listing to Bing Places

Go to Bing Places for Business (the old bingplaces.com address redirects there) and sign in. There are two routes.

Route A: import from Google Business Profile

This is the quickest route if your Google profile is verified. At the time of writing, you choose Import from your Google Business Profile, pick how often to sync (weekly, biweekly or monthly), sign in to Google and import. If you’re verified on Google, Bing verifies the imported listing automatically, so you skip the PIN.

Read this before you import. Microsoft’s Google sync help page lists several catches:

• It imports every listing in that Google account. You can’t pick individual ones.
• Syncing can create duplicates.
• Some fields may not carry across exactly, including categories and Google tracking (UTM) tags.
• Where a Bing listing matches a Google one, the Google data overwrites it.
• Once linked, you can’t edit the listing in Bing Places. You change it in Google and let the sync carry it over. Turning sync off doesn’t unlink the accounts.

If your Google account holds listings you don’t want on Bing, use Route B.

Route B: claim or create manually

Choose your country, enter your business name and location, and search. Then:

• If your listing appears and is unclaimed, claim it. That starts verification.
• If someone else has already claimed it, use Request Access rather than creating a new one. The claimant may be a former agency or member of staff.
• If you’ve moved, don’t edit the old listing; create a new one (see “Moving or renaming” below).
• If nothing matches, create a new business, and report any duplicates you spotted along the way.

Nothing you enter goes live until the listing is verified.

Done when: your listing appears in your Bing Places account.

Step 3: Fill in the details that matter

Bing checks your basic details (name, address, phone, website, hours, category and status) against other sources. Microsoft says changes “are only applied if they align with trusted external data”; inconsistent ones may not publish or may be overwritten. So match your other listings exactly.

Field	What to enter	Why it matters
Business name	The name customers know, as on your signage. No “best”, “cheap” or similar unless it’s legally part of the name.	Microsoft’s data quality guidelines warn that breaking the rules can lead to suspension.
Address and map pin	Your real address, with the pin at the centre of your premises.	Distance is one of Bing’s local ranking factors.
Phone	A working business number, not a reseller’s line.	It may also be how you receive your PIN.
Website	Your own website, not a social profile.	Microsoft says website SEO plays an important role in local ranking.
Categories	One primary, plus up to nine more that genuinely apply.	Helps Bing match you to searches.
Hours	Accurate hours; up to two time slots a day (useful if you close for lunch).	A basic detail Bing checks against other sources.
Photos	Up to 100, at least 480 × 360 pixels, up to 10MB per upload, each tagged (exterior, interior, logo). Microsoft suggests two exterior shots plus interior, services and awards.	Microsoft says tagging helps your images rank better on Bing.
Services	What you actually do (imported automatically if you sync from Google).	Says more than a category can.
Contact details (email, Facebook, Yelp, TripAdvisor)	Links to your other profiles.	Not published; they help Bing connect your listing to other sources.

If customers don’t come to you (trades and mobile services)

Plumbers, electricians, cleaners and other mobile businesses can hide their address so only their town and service areas show, but only once they’ve listed the areas they cover: up to 20 towns, regions or postcodes. Bing still uses the address privately for verification. Microsoft’s help for businesses without a physical store words the setting differently in places, so look for an option about hiding your address or whether customers visit you. With 20 slots, list the areas you most want work in, not everywhere you’ve ever done a job.

Done when: every field is filled in and matches your Google Business Profile and website exactly.

Step 4: Verify your listing and wait

Unless the Google import verified you, Bing needs proof you’re the business. Microsoft’s help on managing your listing says you can receive a six-digit PIN by phone, post, email or text, but not every option is available to everyone, so you’ll be offered one or more. Phone is only offered if the listing already has an unedited business phone number.

Microsoft gives no UK time for postcards: five to six business days is typical in the US, and it can take up to 12 business days depending on location. If you go by post, don’t expect the PIN within the week.

If the PIN doesn’t arrive or doesn’t work:

• Microsoft says to wait 12 days before contacting Bing Places support about a missing postcard.
• If a PIN is rejected, someone (an agency, say) may have started verification from a different account. The PIN must be entered in that same account, so find out who started it.

Once verified, publishing usually takes 7 to 12 days; Microsoft says to allow up to two weeks outside North America. Editing the listing in the meantime changes the publish date, so make all your changes at once, then leave it alone. If it’s still not live after 12 days, contact support.

Done when: your listing shows on Bing Maps with the right name, address, phone, hours and website.

Step 5: Add your website to Bing Webmaster Tools

Bing Webmaster Tools is a free Microsoft service that tells Bing your site exists and shows how Bing sees it, much like Google Search Console. Sign in, then add your site one of two ways:

1. Import from Google Search Console. If your site is already verified in Search Console, Bing adds the sites you pick, with their sitemaps, and verifies them automatically. New to Search Console? Start with our Google Search Console guide for beginners.
2. Add it manually and prove you own it by uploading a small file, adding a meta tag to your homepage, or adding a DNS record to your domain (automatic with some DNS providers). If that sounds technical, hand it to whoever manages your website.

Data usually takes about 48 hours to appear.

Submit your sitemap. A sitemap is a file listing your website’s pages, often at yoursite.co.uk/sitemap.xml. If you imported from Search Console, it’s probably there already; if not, add it in the Sitemaps section.

Consider IndexNow. IndexNow lets your website tell Bing straight away when a page is added, changed or deleted. Microsoft lists sources including a WordPress plugin, Cloudflare, Shopify, Joomla and Drupal, so for many sites it’s a setting rather than a manual job. Ask whoever runs your site whether it’s switched on.

Check your homepage with URL Inspection. It shows whether the page is indexed, and a live test shows what Bing’s crawler sees. You can request indexing, within a daily limit.

Done when: your site shows as verified in Bing Webmaster Tools, your sitemap is listed, and URL Inspection shows your homepage is indexed (or you’ve requested it).

Step 6: Make sure nothing is blocking Bing

Websites can tell search engines to stay away, sometimes by accident. Check two things, or ask your web person to:

• robots.txt. This small file at yoursite.co.uk/robots.txt tells search engine crawlers which parts of the site they can visit. Bing’s crawler is called Bingbot, and Microsoft’s guidelines warn against blocking it there.
• Page-level tags that affect Copilot. Microsoft’s guidelines say a NOINDEX tag keeps a page out of Bing search and Copilot experiences. A NOARCHIVE tag stops a page’s content being used in Copilot responses, and NOCACHE limits Copilot to using only the page’s address, title and snippet. They have legitimate uses. Your homepage and service pages aren’t one of them.

Done when: robots.txt doesn’t block Bingbot, and your key pages carry no NOINDEX, NOARCHIVE or NOCACHE tags you didn’t intend.

Step 7: Check what Bing and Copilot say

On Bing and Bing Maps, search for your business name, then for your trade plus your town (for example, “electrician Worcester”). The “Data from” section at the bottom of a local listing shows where Bing got its information, so if something’s wrong, it tells you which sites need correcting.

In Copilot, ask what your customers would ask, naming your town (“Who’s a good plumber in Stockport?”), then ask about your business by name. Note who’s mentioned and which sources Copilot cites, and ask again on different days. Research by SparkToro and Gumshoe found less than a 1 in 100 chance of an AI tool giving the same list of brands twice. That research wasn’t specific to Copilot, but the lesson holds: one answer tells you very little. An AI visibility audit does this checking systematically across several AI tools.

In Bing Webmaster Tools, look for the AI Performance report, which Microsoft launched as a public preview in February 2026. It counts how often your pages are cited in Microsoft Copilot, AI summaries in Bing and some partner services, and in June 2026 Microsoft began rolling out extra views globally, including a “Local” intent category. Very low citation activity may not show up, so a small local site may see little or nothing; Microsoft says that isn’t a penalty. A citation isn’t a click, either.

Done when: you’ve searched for yourself on Bing and Bing Maps, asked Copilot about your trade and town several times, and noted who was named and which sources it used.

Reviews and keeping it consistent

Reviews. Microsoft’s explanation of Bing’s local ranking names three factors: relevance, distance and popularity. Popularity includes positive reviews and ratings “on sites like Yelp and TripAdvisor” and how often a business is mentioned online. So the reviews Bing weighs live on other sites. A 2025 Whitespark study of Bing local results in US cities found Facebook was the review source shown most often, ahead of Yelp and Tripadvisor. UK results may differ, so check your own listing, and ask every customer for a review on the sites they already use.

Some US guides suggest offering rewards for reviews. In the UK, don’t. Under the Digital Markets, Competition and Consumers Act 2024, fake reviews and undisclosed paid or incentivised reviews have been banned since April 2025, and the CMA’s guidance also covers hiding negative ones.

Consistency. Bing checks the details owners submit against other search engines, websites and social media, so keep your name, address, phone number and website identical on Bing, Google, Apple’s business listings, your website and any directories. Microsoft also says other sources can take priority if your Bing Places data hasn’t been updated for more than six months. Our advice: look at your listing at least every six months, and straight away whenever your details change.

Moving or renaming. Don’t edit the old listing. Microsoft’s advice is to create a new listing at the new address and mark the old one as closed. There’s no “moved” status, and closed listings fade and are removed after about six months.

If you’d rather hand it over

Everything above is free, and you can do it yourself. If you’d rather not, or you want Bing looked at alongside Google and the AI tools, we can help. Get Found has 22 years’ experience, offices at 39 Foregate Street in Worcester and in Stockport, and clients across the UK. No long contracts, and you always own your domain and website.

See our Bing Places and Bing SEO service, part of our local SEO service, or start with our free visibility audit, which checks how you appear on Google, Maps and the main AI tools.