Which user-agent strings identify BingBot?

The following user-agent strings identify BingBot: Bingbot, BingBot, MSNBot.

Does BingBot respect robots.txt rules?

Yes, BingBot respects robots.txt directives according to official documentation.

How do I block or allow BingBot in robots.txt?

You can control BingBot access using robots.txt rules. See the blocking snippet on this page for specific directives.

How can I verify BingBot traffic in server logs?

You can verify BingBot requests by checking your server access logs for the documented user-agent strings. For accurate verification, correlate user-agent patterns with IP ranges or verification methods provided by Microsoft.

What is BingBot?

Direct Answer: BingBot is a crawler from Microsoft that powers Bing search.

Operator: Microsoft Purpose: Search Indexing

User-Agent Identification

The following user-agent strings identify BingBot in your server logs:

Bingbot
BingBot
MSNBot

robots.txt Rules for BingBot

Respects robots.txt: Yes

Use the following robots.txt rules to control BingBot access:

User-agent: Bingbot
Disallow: /path-to-block

Crawl Behavior

Request Pattern: Not Documented

Official Documentation Quotes

""

Source: Official Documentation

Log Verification

To verify BingBot traffic in your server logs:

Search access logs for the user-agent strings listed above
Check if the IP addresses match documented ranges (if provided by Microsoft)
Verify the crawl pattern matches documented behavior
Use reverse DNS lookup for additional verification if available

Note: Observed behavior in production environments may differ from official documentation. Log-based monitoring provides the only reliable verification of actual bot behavior.

Official Documentation

View Official BingBot Documentation →

Information extracted on February 2, 2026 from official sources. Content generated with AI assistance.