---
title: "Bingbot: user agent, token, block rate | Agent Ready Crawlers"
description: "Bingbot from Microsoft: exact user-agent string, robots.txt token bingbot, search index purpose and how to verify it. 3.1% of top sites block it."
canonical: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/bingbot
site: "Agent Ready Crawlers"
last_updated: 2026-11-04
section: "Crawlers"
---

# Bingbot: user agent, token, block rate | Agent Ready Crawlers

> Bingbot from Microsoft: exact user-agent string, robots.txt token bingbot, search index purpose and how to verify it. 3.1% of top sites block it.

Source: https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/bingbot
Site: Agent Ready Crawlers
Last reviewed: 2026-11-04

Search index crawler from Microsoft

# Bingbot

In short

Bingbot is Microsoft's search index crawler. The token to write in robots.txt is bingbot. Verify it by reverse DNS, then a forward lookup. Hourly crawl control in Bing Webmaster Tools. Bingbot: robots.txt can be configured to tell Bing crawlers how to interact with a site; crawl rate is set by hour in Bing Webmaster Tools.

Operator

[Microsoft](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/operator/microsoft/) Vendor profile: [Microsoft](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/vendors/microsoft/)

Purpose

Search index [All search index rows](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/purpose/search-index/). Builds a search index that sends visitors back. Refusing it removes pages from that product.

User-agent string

`Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; bingbot/2.0; +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Safari/537.36`

robots.txt token

`bingbot` Matched case-insensitively (RFC 9309). The token and the user-agent string are different things.

Respects robots.txt

Yes, per operator

Microsoft: robots.txt can be configured to tell Bing crawlers how to interact with a site; crawl rate is set by hour in Bing Webmaster Tools. [Source](https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/which-crawlers-does-bing-use-8c184ec0), read 2026-11-04.

Verification

Reverse DNS

Reverse-resolve the source address, then forward-resolve the name and require the same address. [Documentation](https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/how-to-verify-bingbot-3905dc26), read 2026-11-04.

IP ranges

[bing.com/toolbox/bingbot.json](https://www.bing.com/toolbox/bingbot.json)

Rate behaviour

Hourly crawl control in Bing Webmaster Tools.

Block rate

**3.1%** of 5,938 top-10,000 sites with a parsed robots.txt disallow `Bingbot` at the root (182 sites). 0.4% name it; 2.7% refuse it only through a \* group. Rank 30 of 31 tokens measured.

Across all 8,624 parsed robots.txt files in the crawl: 2.2% (0.2% named). Crawl of 2026-11-04; [report](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/block-rates/).

Documentation

[bing.com](https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/which-crawlers-does-bing-use-8c184ec0), read 2026-11-04.

Note. Verify Bingbot tool at bing.com/webmasters/verifybingbot. Training opt-out today is the NOARCHIVE meta tag; a robots.txt no-training preference is targeted for early 2027, per Cloudflare's 2026-09-15 post. bingbot.json creationTime 2024-01-03.

## Allow and refuse lines

### To allow bingbot

User-agent: bingbot
Allow: /

### To refuse bingbot

User-agent: bingbot
Disallow: /

Refusing or allowing in robots.txt states a preference. Enforcement of a refusal belongs in your WAF; see how to verify the identity above.

## Microsoft in the Verification Ledger

bingbot.json (creationTime 2024-01-03) and a verification tool; nothing for Browse with Copilot. [All operators](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/verification/).

IP lists

-   [www.bing.com/toolbox/bingbot.json](https://www.bing.com/toolbox/bingbot.json)

Reverse DNS

Verify Bingbot tool and documented methods

Key directory

not published

Cloudflare

not checked

Visa TAP registry

no public operator-level registration found (checked 2026-11-04)

Mastercard Agent Pay

no public operator-level registration found (checked 2026-11-04)

## In the news

-   2026-09-15[Cloudflare adds Disallow AI Training and the Accountable label](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/news/2026-09-15-cloudflare-adds-disallow-ai-training-and-the-accountable-lab/)

## Other Microsoft rows

-   [MicrosoftPreview](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/microsoftpreview/) Other token MicrosoftPreview
-   [Browse with Copilot (formerly Copilot Actions)](https://agentreadycrawlers.com/crawlers/copilot-actions/) Task agent no token

## Sources

-   [Which Crawlers Does Bing Use?](https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/which-crawlers-does-bing-use-8c184ec0) read 2026-11-04
-   [bing.com: how to verify bingbot 3905dc26](https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/how-to-verify-bingbot-3905dc26) read 2026-11-04
-   [bing.com: bingbot (JSON)](https://www.bing.com/toolbox/bingbot.json) read 2026-11-04

Last reviewed 2026-11-04