There is no fixed schedule such as “Bingbot crawls every website once per day.” Bingbot uses automated systems to determine how frequently each website and individual URL should be revisited.
Bing says its crawler uses algorithms to determine which sites to crawl, how often to crawl them, and how many pages to fetch. The goal is to keep content fresh while avoiding unnecessary crawling.
For an SEO intern, the important idea is:
Bingbot does not crawl every page at the same frequency.
Some pages may be revisited frequently, while relatively stable pages may be checked less often.
Why Doesn’t Bingbot Crawl Every Page Equally?
Imagine a website containing 100,000 webpages.
Some pages might change several times each day, while others might remain unchanged for years.
Crawling all 100,000 pages repeatedly would waste resources. Bing therefore tries to determine where crawling is most useful.
Bing describes this as crawl efficiency. Its crawler prioritizes URLs that are new, potentially not yet indexed, or likely to have changed. It also crawls pages to discover links to previously unknown URLs.
So, Bingbot’s crawling frequency can vary significantly between websites and between individual pages.
What Factors Influence Bingbot’s Crawl Frequency?
Several factors can influence how often Bingbot revisits webpages.
1. How Frequently the Content Changes
Content freshness is one of the major considerations.
If a webpage changes frequently, Bing has more reason to revisit it regularly.
For example, consider these two websites:
News website
- Publishes 100 articles daily
- Articles change frequently
- New information appears constantly
Company website
- Has 30 service pages
- Pages rarely change
- Content may remain unchanged for months
Bingbot has more reason to crawl the news website frequently.
Bing has explained that crawl frequency depends partly on how frequently content is edited and updated.
2. How Large the Website Is
The number of URLs on a website also matters.
A small website with 20 important pages is relatively simple to crawl.
A large ecommerce website might contain:
- 100,000 product pages
- Thousands of category pages
- Filter combinations
- Customer-generated pages
- Blog posts
- PDFs
Bing needs to manage its crawling resources across these URLs.
Bing’s documentation has identified site size and the total number of pages among factors affecting crawling.
However, having a large website does not automatically mean every page gets crawled frequently.
The quality, relevance, freshness, and technical accessibility of those URLs also matter.
3. The Relevance and Importance of a URL
Bing does not treat every known URL equally.
Its crawler prioritizes URLs that may be valuable for its index, including relevant URLs that have not yet been indexed and indexed URLs that may need checking for updates.
Bing Webmaster Tools also states that the last-crawled frequency for individual URLs depends on multiple factors, including the URL’s rank and relevance.
This means two pages on the same website can have different crawl patterns.
4. How Often You Publish New Content
Websites that regularly publish new content can give Bing more URLs to discover.
For example:
| Website | Publishing pattern |
|---|---|
| Personal website | One article every few months |
| Business blog | Two articles weekly |
| Ecommerce store | Hundreds of new products monthly |
| News website | Hundreds of articles daily |
The more frequently a website produces meaningful changes, the more frequently Bing may need to check relevant areas of that website.
But publishing content alone does not guarantee more frequent crawling.
Bing’s systems consider multiple signals when determining crawl schedules.
5. Website Server Performance
Bingbot needs to request webpages from your server.
If the server frequently experiences connection problems, DNS failures, or overload, crawling can become difficult.
Bing Webmaster Tools specifically identifies DNS failures and connection issues as crawl problems that can prevent Bingbot from accessing a website effectively.
This is why technical website health matters for crawling.
For example:
Healthy server → Bingbot can access pages efficiently
Unstable server → Bingbot encounters errors or failed requests.
6. Crawl Control Settings
Website owners can influence Bingbot’s crawl speed through Bing Webmaster Tools’ Crawl Control.
Crawl Control allows website owners to specify different crawl speeds for different hours of the day. This can help reduce crawling during busy periods and allow more crawling during quieter periods.
For example:
9 AM–5 PM: slower crawling
5 PM–9 AM: faster crawling
This can be useful for websites where server resources are limited during peak visitor hours.
7. Robots.txt and Crawl-Delay
Bingbot also considers instructions provided through robots.txt.
Bing confirms that Bingbot respects applicable robots.txt directives, including crawl-delay. If a crawl-delay directive exists, it can limit how frequently Bingbot requests pages.
For example:
User-agent: Bingbot
Crawl-delay: 5A higher crawl-delay means Bingbot requests pages less frequently.
However, beginners should avoid adding crawl-delay without understanding its consequences.
Reducing crawling can also make it harder for Bing to discover and process new or updated content efficiently.
Does Bingbot Crawl a Page Every Time It Changes?
Not necessarily.
Updating a page does not mean Bingbot will immediately visit it.
Bingbot’s scheduling systems determine when a URL should be revisited.
This is one reason mechanisms such as IndexNow are useful.
IndexNow allows websites to notify participating search engines when URLs are added, updated, or deleted. It can reduce the need for search engines to repeatedly discover changes through traditional crawling.
Importantly, IndexNow does not guarantee indexing.
It provides a notification about a change; Bing still controls crawling and indexing decisions.
Does a Higher Crawl Rate Mean Better Rankings?
No.
This is an important SEO distinction.
A page being crawled frequently does not automatically mean it will rank highly.
Think about the difference:
Crawling: Bingbot visits the page.
Indexing: Bing processes and potentially stores the page.
Ranking: Bing determines where relevant indexed pages may appear for searches.
Therefore:
Frequent crawling does not equal higher rankings.
You should focus on making important content discoverable, accessible, useful, and technically healthy rather than trying to maximize Bingbot visits simply for SEO.
How Can You Check Bingbot’s Crawling Activity?
Bing Webmaster Tools provides useful crawling information.
Its Search Performance reporting includes:
- Crawl requests
- Crawl errors
- Indexed pages
- Search impressions
- Clicks
- Average position
These metrics can help you understand how Bing interacts with your website.
The Site Explorer tool can provide URL-level information, including the discovered date and last-crawled date. Bing notes that the crawl frequency shown for individual URLs depends on factors such as relevance and rank.
For an SEO intern, this is much more useful than guessing how often Bingbot visits.
A Simple Example
Suppose you manage an ecommerce website with 50,000 URLs.
You have:
- 40,000 stable product pages
- 5,000 frequently updated products
- 3,000 category pages
- 2,000 blog and informational pages
Bingbot may not treat all 50,000 URLs equally.
A frequently changing product page may need more regular checking.
A product page that has remained unchanged for months may need less frequent checking.
Category pages may also be important because they can contain links to other URLs.
This is why crawl frequency should be viewed at the URL level, not only at the website level.
What Should an SEO Intern Do?
You generally should not try to force Bingbot to crawl your website constantly.
Instead, focus on improving crawl efficiency.
Make important pages easy to discover
Use logical internal linking and accurate XML sitemaps.
Keep important content accessible
Avoid accidentally blocking valuable pages through robots.txt or technical problems.
Keep your sitemap accurate
Remove obsolete URLs and maintain accurate information about important pages.
Consider IndexNow
Use IndexNow when appropriate to notify Bing about additions, updates, and deletions.
Monitor Bing Webmaster Tools
Watch crawl requests, crawl errors, indexed pages, and URL-level crawling information.
Quick Summary
| Factor | Possible effect on crawling |
|---|---|
| Content changes frequently | May encourage more frequent checking |
| Content rarely changes | May require less frequent checking |
| Large number of URLs | Requires more crawl-resource management |
| URL relevance | Can influence crawl priority |
| Publishing frequency | Creates more new or changed URLs |
| Server problems | Can interfere with crawling |
| Robots.txt | Can restrict crawler behavior |
| Crawl-delay | Can reduce crawl frequency |
| Crawl Control | Lets owners adjust hourly crawl speed |
| IndexNow | Helps notify Bing about URL changes |
Final Takeaway
There is no universal Bingbot crawl frequency for every website or webpage.
Bing uses automated systems to determine which URLs to crawl, when to revisit them, and how many pages to request. Content freshness, URL relevance, website size, technical accessibility, server conditions, and webmaster crawl settings can all influence crawling behavior.
For your Bing SEO learning sequence, remember this:
New content + useful URLs + good technical accessibility → easier and more efficient crawling.
But crawling is only one stage. It does not guarantee indexing or higher search rankings.