Bing Places and Copilot

Why Bing matters more than its search share

Bing's own search share is modest next to Google's, and for years many businesses ignored it. AI has changed the arithmetic. Microsoft Copilot, built into Windows, the Edge browser and Microsoft 365, answers local questions from Bing's index and Bing Places data. Bing's data also reaches other products that license it. A business correct in Bing is correct in all of those places at once.

Bay Area AEO's one-line definition of consistent listings names four platforms: Google, Bing, Apple Maps and Yelp. Bing is the one most often left unclaimed, so it is often where the first audit finds the oldest information: a former address, a phone number from years ago, hours that never changed after a reopening.

Claiming the listing

Go to Bing Places for Business and sign in with a Microsoft account, or with a Google account if the business will import from Google. There are two routes.

The fields to get right

Bing's fields are similar to Google's. The business name, address and phone must match the master record exactly. Choose categories carefully, because Bing's category list differs from Google's; pick the closest match for the primary line of work and add others that genuinely apply. Enter hours, including special hours for holidays. Add the website, a description and photos. If the business serves customers at their homes, set the service area.

Bing also accepts links to social profiles and booking pages. Add the ones that are active and maintained, and leave out abandoned accounts, because an assistant following a link to a profile that has not posted since 2019 learns nothing useful.

How Copilot answers local questions

Ask Copilot a question such as “Tankless water heater installer in Walnut Creek” and it typically writes a short answer with a few named businesses and links, often alongside a map card drawn from Bing. The card carries the phone number and hours straight from Bing's listing data. When that data is wrong, Copilot shows the wrong number with full confidence.

Copilot's written answer draws on web pages that Bing has indexed: the business's own site, review sites, directories and local articles. That makes the rest of this handbook apply as much to Copilot as to any other platform. The listing work is the platform-specific part.

Webmaster tools from Bing

While setting up Bing Places, also set up Bing Webmaster Tools for the website. It shows whether Bing has indexed the site's pages, flags crawl problems and accepts a sitemap. Bing supports IndexNow, a protocol that lets a site notify Bing as soon as a page is added or changed, and some website platforms send those notifications automatically. For a business that updates hours, menus or schedules often, faster indexing means Copilot reads the new version sooner.

Webmaster Tools can import settings from Google Search Console, so this too takes minutes once the Google side is set up.

A Peninsula example

Consider a house cleaning company based in San Mateo. Bay Area AEO's house cleaning page lists the kinds of question customers ask, such as “House cleaning service in Mountain View for every two weeks? Eco-friendly products preferred.”, and the signals that matter: service checklists, pricing context, trust details such as insurance and background checks, and reviews from recurring clients that mention consistency over time.

On Bing Places, that company would set itself up as a service-area business covering San Mateo, Burlingame, Foster City and the other cities in its master record; list the kinds of cleaning it offers; state its hours and how far ahead bookings are needed; and link to the website page that explains what each clean includes. None of that is difficult. It is simply the same facts, in one more place an assistant reads.

Ratings from other sites

Bing's place cards can show ratings and reviews gathered from other review sites as well as its own. That is one more reason the Yelp listing and the trade directories in the next three chapters matter for Copilot: what customers write elsewhere can appear right beside the business's Bing listing, and it feeds the description Copilot writes. A business that has put its effort only into Google reviews may find its Bing card dominated by an older, thinner set of reviews from another site.

Bing and the data aggregators

Bing, like other map providers, also takes business data from third-party aggregators that collect and resell business listings. If an old address keeps reappearing on Bing after it has been corrected, the source is often an aggregator record that was never updated. Chapter 15 explains how to trace and correct those upstream records so the fix holds.

Checking the result

After the listing is claimed and corrected, search the business on Bing Maps and on Bing itself, and compare what shows with the master record. Then ask Copilot two questions: one discovery question a customer would ask (“house cleaner in San Mateo for every two weeks”) and one direct question (“What are the hours for [business] in San Mateo?”). Record both answers in the audit sheet from chapter 7. Listing corrections on Bing tend to show in Copilot's map card first; changes to the written answer depend on the other signals as well.

Repeat the check after a month. Bay Area AEO's stated timeline, that listing and data fixes can start showing up in AI answers within a few weeks, applies here as much as on Google. If Copilot is still showing old information after that, look for a duplicate listing or an aggregator record carrying the old data.

Common problems and their fixes

A few problems come up often enough on Bing to check for directly. An import from Google can create a second listing beside an older unclaimed one, leaving two versions of the business on Bing Maps; claim the old one and mark it as a duplicate or closed. A category from Google may map to a broader Bing category; open the category list and pick the closest specific one by hand. Special hours entered on Google may not carry over; enter them on Bing directly before each holiday.

Listings for businesses that have moved are the hardest. Bing may keep showing the old address for a while after the new one is verified, especially if aggregator data still carries it. Correct the listing, then correct the aggregators, then check again in a few weeks.

Businesses with more than one location

A business with several Bay Area locations, such as a dental group with offices in Fremont and Union City or a café with three shops in San Francisco, should give each location its own listing with its own hours and phone number. Bing Places supports bulk management for chains, and the Google import can bring in every location at once. Keep the naming pattern consistent (“Brand – Neighborhood” only if that is how the signs read) and make sure each listing links to its own location page on the website, so an assistant can match each place to the right page.

Making Bing part of the routine

The reason Bing listings go stale is simple: nobody looks at them. Add Bing Places to the monthly listing check, alongside Google, Apple Maps and Yelp, and add Copilot to the platforms in the monthly prompt test. Once those two habits are in place, Bing stops being the forgotten listing and becomes one more source that agrees with all the others.

Related chapters9. Google Business Profile · 11. Apple Maps and Siri · 15. Duplicates and stale listings · 5. Platform by platform