bingbot: user agent, purpose, and whether to allow it
bingbot is the Microsoft search crawler that builds the Bing index.
Specification
| Operator | Microsoft |
|---|---|
| Purpose | Classic searchConventional search indexing. On some engines the same index also feeds AI-generated answer surfaces. |
| Agent kind | CrawlerAutonomous crawler. Appears in your logs under its own user-agent. |
| User agent | Not documented by Microsoft. Kymo matches this agent on the token bingbot, observed in real logs rather than published in operator documentation. |
| robots.txt token | bingbot |
| robots.txt compliance | Documented: respects robots.txt |
| Verification | Reverse DNS, forward confirmed.search.msn.com |
| Sends referral traffic | Yes |
| Attaches a citation | Yes |
| Status | Active |
| Legacy Kymo category | indexing |
| Source | Third-party source, not yet confirmed against operator docshttps://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/which-crawlers-does-bing-use-8c184ec0 |
| Verified on |
What blocking it costs you
Blocking bingbot removes you from Bing search results. Microsoft AI surfaces that draw on the Bing index would be affected too, but Kymo could not retrieve Microsoft own crawler documentation to confirm the current grounding relationship, so no specific claim about Copilot is made here.
robots.txt directives
Both blocks below address bingbot only. Rules for one token never apply to another, even from the same operator.
Allow bingbot
User-agent: bingbot Allow: /
Block bingbot
User-agent: bingbot Disallow: /
Questions
What is the bingbot user agent?
Microsoft documents the robots.txt token bingbot but does not publish a full user-agent string for it. Kymo records this agent from observation rather than from documentation.
Does bingbot respect robots.txt?
Documented: respects robots.txt
What does blocking bingbot cost me?
Blocking bingbot removes you from Bing search results. Microsoft AI surfaces that draw on the Bing index would be affected too, but Kymo could not retrieve Microsoft own crawler documentation to confirm the current grounding relationship, so no specific claim about Copilot is made here.
Related crawlers
All AI crawlers and control tokens
See this bot in your own logs
Kymo classifies every crawler hit server-side using this registry, so bingbot shows up under Microsoft with its purpose attached. Read how crawler detection works, or run a free free AI visibility check to see what each crawler currently gets back from your server. No account needed for the check.