Yes. Website owners can control how Bingbot accesses different parts of a website. The most common method is the robots.txt file, which can allow or disallow crawling of specific URL paths. Bingbot checks robots.txt while crawling and follows applicable directives.
However, there is an important SEO distinction:
Controlling crawling is different from controlling indexing.
If you want to stop Bing from crawling a section, robots.txt is normally appropriate. If you want a page removed from Bing’s search index, you generally need an indexing directive such as noindex, while allowing Bingbot to crawl the page so it can see that directive.
What Is Robots.txt?
robots.txt is a text file placed at the root of a website.
For example:
https://example.com/robots.txtIt contains instructions for search-engine crawlers.
A website owner can use it to tell crawlers which directories or URL patterns they should not crawl. Bing’s documentation specifically describes robots.txt as a way to control crawler access to sections of a website.
Think of it as a set of crawl instructions for automated bots.
How Can You Block a Specific Folder?
Suppose your website contains these sections:
example.com/blog/
example.com/products/
example.com/admin/
example.com/private/You don’t want search-engine crawlers accessing the /private/ section.
You could use:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/This tells compliant crawlers not to crawl URLs under /private/.
For Bingbot specifically, you can also use:
User-agent: Bingbot
Disallow: /private/Bing supports bot-specific robots.txt instructions. However, Bing recommends keeping robots.txt configurations simple because separate bot-specific sections can create maintenance problems if directives become inconsistent.
Can You Block a Specific Page?
Yes.
Suppose you have:
example.com/test-pageYou could specify:
User-agent: Bingbot
Disallow: /test-pageBingbot should then avoid crawling that URL.
You can also use URL patterns to control groups of pages.
For example:
User-agent: Bingbot
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /temp/
Disallow: /admin/This could prevent Bingbot from crawling those URL paths.
Can You Allow One Page Inside a Blocked Folder?
Yes, Bing supports Allow directives.
For example:
User-agent: Bingbot
Disallow: /private/
Allow: /private/public-page.htmlThis creates an exception for the specified URL while the broader folder remains disallowed.
However, robots.txt syntax and rule interactions can become complicated. For an SEO beginner, it is better to keep the rules as simple and specific as possible.
Can You Control Bingbot’s Crawling Speed?
Yes, but this is different from blocking particular pages.
Bing provides Crawl Control through Bing Webmaster Tools. It allows website owners to influence Bingbot’s crawl speed during different hours of the day.
For example, a website could configure crawling to be:
Slower during:
9 AM–5 PM
Faster during:
5 PM–9 AM
This can help websites manage server resources during busy periods.
Bing also supports a crawl-delay directive in robots.txt. However, Bing’s current documentation says that a crawl-delay directive takes precedence over the Crawl Control settings.
Robots.txt Does Not Mean “Don’t Index”
This is probably the most important concept for an SEO intern to understand.
Suppose you have:
User-agent: Bingbot
Disallow: /private-page/This tells Bingbot not to crawl the URL.
It does not serve as the normal mechanism for saying:
“Never show this URL in Bing’s index.”
Bing’s current Webmaster Guidelines explicitly state:
robots.txt controls crawl access, not indexing.
If a page should not appear in Bing search, you would generally use a noindex directive instead.
For an HTML page, that can look like:
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">Bing explains that it needs to crawl the page to detect the noindex directive.
Therefore, don’t accidentally do this:
robots.txt → block pagewhen your actual objective is:
Keep page accessible → let Bingbot crawl it → tell Bing "noindex"When Should You Use Robots.txt?
Robots.txt is useful when you want to reduce unnecessary crawling or prevent Bingbot from accessing certain areas.
Common examples include:
- Internal search-result pages
- Temporary directories
- Duplicate URL patterns
- Certain parameter-based URLs
- Private application areas
- Low-value crawl paths
- Development or testing sections
Bing’s current guidelines specifically recommend blocking unnecessary crawl paths when they create crawl waste.
When Should You NOT Use Robots.txt?
You should be careful about blocking important SEO pages.
For example, imagine you have:
example.com/services/seo/This page contains valuable information and should appear in Bing.
You generally should not accidentally block it:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /services/That could prevent Bingbot from crawling the page.
Bing’s guidelines specifically advise against unnecessarily blocking important URLs.
What About Password-Protected Pages?
If an area contains genuinely private information, robots.txt should not be treated as a security mechanism.
For example:
example.com/customer-data/If that information must remain private, use proper authentication and server-side access controls.
A robots.txt rule simply tells compliant crawlers not to crawl the path. It does not provide authentication or encryption.
This distinction is extremely important for developers and SEO professionals.
Can Website Owners Control Bingbot From Bing Webmaster Tools?
Yes.
Bing Webmaster Tools provides several tools that help website owners understand and manage crawling.
For example, Site Explorer can show URLs that are disallowed by robots.txt, along with other crawl and indexing information. It can also show discovered URLs, indexed URLs, crawl issues, and last-crawled information.
Bing also provides Crawl Control for managing crawling speed.
So an SEO intern can use these tools to investigate questions such as:
- Is Bingbot discovering my page?
- Is robots.txt blocking it?
- When was it last crawled?
- Is it indexed?
- Are there crawl errors?
- Are important sections being blocked?
A Practical Example
Imagine an ecommerce website has these sections:
example.com/products/
example.com/blog/
example.com/search/
example.com/cart/
example.com/checkout/The SEO team wants Bingbot to crawl products and blog articles.
But internal search and checkout pages don’t need regular crawling.
A simplified robots.txt could look like:
User-agent: Bingbot
Disallow: /search/
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/The result is conceptually:
| Website section | Bingbot access |
|---|---|
/products/ | Allowed |
/blog/ | Allowed |
/search/ | Blocked |
/cart/ | Blocked |
/checkout/ | Blocked |
This can help reduce unnecessary crawling of low-value URL areas.
However, you should always check the actual site’s URL structure before implementing rules.
One More Important Point: Check Your Robots.txt Carefully
A small robots.txt mistake can have a large SEO impact.
For example:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /This broadly tells compliant crawlers not to crawl the website.
For a production website, accidentally deploying something like this could prevent search-engine crawling across the site.
That’s why Bing provides a robots.txt Tester, and its documentation recommends validating the file after creating or modifying it.
The Simple Difference You Should Remember
| Goal | Common approach |
|---|---|
| Control Bingbot’s crawling | robots.txt |
| Block a folder from crawling | Disallow |
| Allow an exception | Allow |
| Control Bingbot crawl speed | Crawl Control / crawl-delay |
| Prevent a page from being indexed | noindex |
| Remove an already indexed URL | Appropriate removal tools + indexing directives |
| Protect confidential information | Authentication/server access controls |
Final Takeaway
Yes, website owners can control Bingbot’s access to specific pages and folders.
The primary method is robots.txt, where Disallow and Allow directives can control crawler access to URL paths. Bing also provides Crawl Control for managing crawling speed.
The key SEO rule is:
Robots.txt controls crawling;
noindexcontrols search indexing.
Once you understand this distinction, the next logical topic is robots.txt itself—how to create one, how Bingbot reads it, and common mistakes that can accidentally block an entire website.