Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools in one dashboard
Why Bing still matters (and feeds AI answers), how to verify every site in minutes, and how to read clicks, impressions and positions from both engines side by side.
· 3 min read
Google Search Console is the only place that tells you which Google searches show your pages, how often, in which position and how many clicks they get. Bing Webmaster Tools does the same for Bing. Both are free, both are essential, and both show one site at a time. This guide covers why Bing deserves a place next to Google, how to set both up for many sites quickly, and how to read them together.
Why Bing still matters
Bing's share of search looks small next to Google, but it reaches further than its own homepage:
- Yahoo and DuckDuckGo draw heavily on Bing's index, and so do several AI assistants that search the web.
- Bing users skew towards desktop and work devices, which matters for B2B sites.
- Bing Webmaster Tools gives you its own crawl, index and keyword data, and often catches indexing issues Google doesn't report.
If your site is invisible on Bing, it is often invisible to those AI answers too. Making sure your pages are indexed there costs ten minutes.
Set up Search Console for every site
- Add each site as a Domain property (verified once via a DNS TXT record). It covers
http,https,wwwand every subdomain, so you don't lose data between versions. - Submit the XML sitemap of each site.
- If you manage sites for clients, ask them to add you as a user on their property instead of sharing passwords.
Set up Bing in one step
In Bing Webmaster Tools, choose Import from Google Search Console. It imports all your verified Google properties with their sitemaps, so there is no need to verify each site again.
How to read the numbers
| Metric | What it means | Watch out for |
|---|---|---|
| Clicks | Visits from search results | Lower than analytics "organic" visits from other engines |
| Impressions | Times a page was shown | Rises when you rank for new queries, even in low positions |
| CTR | Clicks ÷ impressions | Depends heavily on position and on rich results |
| Average position | Average of the best position per impression | An average across many queries; look at it per query |
Two things trip people up:
- Data is delayed by about two days, and Search Console keeps 16 months of history. Export or store it if you want longer comparisons.
- Some queries are hidden for privacy, so the sum of queries is lower than total clicks.
What to do with the data
Three reviews pay off every month:
- Queries on page two. Pages ranking 4–20 with plenty of impressions are the cheapest clicks you will ever win. Method in striking-distance keywords.
- High impressions, low CTR. Rewrite titles and descriptions for queries in the top 10 that get fewer clicks than their position should earn.
- Indexing. Pages in your sitemap that Google or Bing don't index. The URL Inspection API tells you why for each URL.
Then summarise it for the client: Monthly SEO report for clients.
Seeing both engines, for all sites, side by side
Doing the above in two consoles for ten sites is twenty logins a week. byanalytics connects Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools for every site and shows clicks, impressions, CTR and positions from both engines next to your traffic, with striking-distance queries, cannibalised keywords and index coverage flagged automatically. Search Console is included in the Free plan; Bing and URL Inspection come with Pro. See all integrations, or start with the overall setup in How to monitor multiple websites from one dashboard.
FAQ
Can I see several Search Console properties in one dashboard?
Not in Search Console itself. You need a tool that reads each property through the Search Console API and shows the sites together.
How do I add my sites to Bing Webmaster Tools quickly?
Use "Import from Google Search Console" in Bing Webmaster Tools. It brings in all your verified Google properties and their sitemaps without verifying each site again.
Why are Search Console clicks lower than organic visits in analytics?
Search Console only counts Google web search, hides some anonymised queries and attributes data differently, while analytics counts organic visits from every search engine.
Is Bing Webmaster Tools worth it?
Yes. It is free, takes minutes to set up via import, and Bing's index also powers other search engines and some AI assistants.
Keep reading
- Striking-distance keywords: the page-two queries closest to clicks A step-by-step method to find the Search Console queries ranking 4 to 20 that can win the most clicks with the least work, and what to change on each page.
- Monthly SEO report for clients: what to include and how to automate it The sections a client actually reads, the numbers that prove progress, a template you can copy and how to stop building the report by hand every month.
- How to monitor multiple websites from one dashboard Traffic, Google and Bing search, SEO health, Core Web Vitals and uptime for every site you run, in one place: a practical setup for freelancers and agencies.