Bing SEO is usually treated as an afterthought: do the work for Google and Bing will follow. Mostly it does, but that habit ignores the most useful thing Bing offers, which is a stated list of what it ranks on. In 2020 Bing updated its webmaster guidelines to name six ranking parameters, as reported by Matt G. Southern in Search Engine Journal’s write-up of Bing’s ranking factors. Reading them closely tells you where Bing and Google advice overlap, and the few places they part.
Bing also matters beyond its own results page. DuckDuckGo says it largely sources its traditional links from Bing, which our post on DuckDuckGo SEO covers. Improve your Bing visibility and you improve it in more than one place.
The six Bing ranking parameters
Here are the six parameters, each quoted or summarised from Bing’s guidelines as reported by SEJ. The right-hand column is where the practical work sits.
| Parameter | Bing’s description | What to check |
|---|---|---|
| Relevance | “How closely the content on the landing page matches the intent behind the search query” | Whether the page answers the query it targets |
| Quality and credibility | “the page itself, the author’s or site’s reputation, and the level of discourse” | Authorship, reputation and tone |
| User engagement | Whether users clicked, how long they stayed, whether they reformulated the query | Titles, snippets and whether the page satisfies |
| Freshness | “Bing generally prefers content from sites that consistently provide up-to-date information” | Update cadence across the site |
| Location | “where the user is located (country and city), where the page is hosted, the language used, and location of visitors” | Hosting, language and local signals |
| Page load time | “Bing prefers faster load times, as slow pages provide a poor user experience” | Speed on real devices |
None of the six is surprising on its own. What is unusual is that a search engine wrote them down. Compare that with the inference and guesswork behind most Google factor lists, which our post on how Google ranks websites tries to keep honest.
Relevance, quality and the level of discourse
Relevance is defined in terms of intent, not keywords: how closely the landing page “matches the intent behind the search query”. A page that repeats the query but answers a different question fails that test. Write for the question the searcher is asking and the keyword will look after itself.
Quality and credibility is where Bing says something most guides skip. Alongside the page and the author’s or site’s reputation, Bing names “the level of discourse”. SEJ reports that Bing may demote content with “name-calling, offensive statements, or uses derogatory language”. Tone is an explicit consideration, not just a style preference.
Bing also penalises scraped content, auto-generated content and low-value affiliate pages. That will be familiar to anyone who has followed Google’s spam policies, and it is a reminder that thin pages built at scale are not a Bing loophole.
In practice, credibility means making it easy to see who wrote a page and why they are worth listening to. Named authors, a clear about page and sources for factual claims all help a reader judge the page, and they cost little to add to a site that lacks them.
User engagement: the parameter Bing states openly
Bing says it looks at whether users clicked a result, how long they stayed on the page, and whether they went back and reformulated the query. Google has long been cagey about engagement. Bing simply lists it.
The practical reading is straightforward. Your title and description have to win the click honestly, because a misleading snippet earns a quick return and a reworded search. The page then has to settle the question, so the searcher has no reason to go back and try again. A reformulated query is a signal that the result did not do its job.
This is also where received wisdom deserves a challenge. Plenty of advice treats time on page as something to inflate, with longer introductions and padding that keeps people scrolling. Bing describes the opposite concern: whether the searcher found what they wanted. A short page that answers the question cleanly does that better than a long one that buries the answer. Measure success by whether people stop searching, not by how long you can hold them.
Bing SEO beyond content: freshness, location and speed
Freshness in Bing’s wording is a site-level habit: it “generally prefers content from sites that consistently provide up-to-date information”. That is different from changing a date on an old article. A site that keeps its pages current builds the pattern Bing describes; a single refreshed post does not.
Location is the parameter with the most moving parts. Bing lists the user’s country and city, where the page is hosted, the language used and the location of visitors. If you serve one country, hosting and language that match it are worth checking. If you serve several, clear language versions matter more than one page trying to rank everywhere.
Page load time is the simplest of the six. Bing prefers faster pages because “slow pages provide a poor user experience”. The work is the same as for Google, and our guide to page speed and SEO covers where the largest gains usually are.
Where to start with Bing
Start with Bing Webmaster Tools. It is the only first-party view of how Bing crawls and shows your site, and it now reports on AI features too, which we cover in our post on Bing Webmaster Tools AI performance. Verify the site, submit a sitemap, and check for crawl errors before touching anything else.
Look at which pages Bing already shows and for which queries. They are often not the pages Google favours, and the difference points to where Bing reads your site differently. A page that ranks on Google but not on Bing is a good place to test the six parameters one at a time.
Then work through the six parameters in order of effort. Speed and freshness are usually the quickest to improve. Relevance and engagement come from rewriting titles and pages so they match intent. Location may need hosting or language changes that take longer. Quality and credibility is a long game, built page by page.
The limitation is age. SEJ’s report on the guidelines dates from June 2020, and search engines change. Bing has added AI features since then, and the list tells you what Bing considers, not how much weight each parameter carries or how they interact. Treat it as Bing’s stated priorities at the time, not a formula. Even so, a ranking list from the search engine itself beats a list assembled by guesswork, and for most sites the overlap with good Google practice means the effort is not wasted on either engine.
Frequently asked questions
What are Bing’s ranking factors?
Bing’s guidelines name six parameters: relevance, quality and credibility, user engagement, freshness, location and page load time.
Is Bing SEO different from Google SEO?
Mostly not. The main differences are that Bing openly lists user engagement and location, and names “the level of discourse” as part of quality.
Does Bing SEO help with DuckDuckGo?
Yes. DuckDuckGo says it largely sources its traditional links from Bing, so Bing visibility carries over.
What does Bing penalise?
Scraped content, auto-generated content and low-value affiliate pages. It may also demote content that uses name-calling or derogatory language.
The takeaway Bing has told you what it ranks on. Match intent, keep the site current and fast, write snippets that earn honest clicks, and check location signals.
