Copilot SEO: how to show up in Microsoft Copilot

Most advice about AI search is written for Google and ChatGPT. Microsoft Copilot gets skipped, and that is exactly why it is easy to win. Copilot is built on Bing, so the whole game is being in Bing's index. Claim Bing Webmaster Tools, let Bingbot read you, and you clear the gate almost no local business bothers to clear.

And more of your customers are asking an AI first. BrightLocal's consumer research found the share of people using AI to find local businesses jumped from about 6 percent to about 45 percent in a single year. Copilot sits right inside Windows, Edge, and Microsoft 365, so a lot of those people are asking Copilot. This page is the plain guide to getting named when they do.

How do you show up in Microsoft Copilot?

You show up in Copilot by being in Bing's index and being the clear answer once you are there. Copilot runs on Bing, so step one is making sure Bing can crawl and index your pages. Step two is the same work that wins any AI citation. Answer questions clearly, and get trusted outside sources to mention your business.

Think of it as two gates. The first gate is technical and most businesses fail it without knowing. Are you in Bing at all? The second gate is about trust and clarity. Once Copilot can read you, does it pick you over the competitor down the road? You have to pass the first gate before the second one even matters.

Does Copilot use Bing?

Yes. Microsoft Copilot pulls its live web results from Bing's index. Bing is Microsoft's search engine, and Copilot is Microsoft's assistant, so they share the same plumbing. When Copilot browses the web to answer a question and cites a source, that source came through Bing.

This is the single most useful fact on the page, so let it land. If your business is not in Bing, it cannot appear in Copilot, no matter how good your website is or how well you rank on Google. Bing is the door, and the door is one most owners have never checked.

How do I get into Bing's index?

You claim Bing Webmaster Tools and submit your sitemap. Bing Webmaster Tools is free, and it is the Bing version of Google Search Console. You verify that you own your site, hand Bing your sitemap, and it starts crawling and indexing your pages faster than if you waited to be found.

Before that helps, make sure nothing is blocking Bingbot. Bingbot is the crawler that fills Bing's index, and if your robots.txt or your CDN turns it away, none of the rest works. A clean, open robots.txt that points to your sitemap is what you want. It looks like this.

If you are not sure whether Bingbot can reach your pages, that is one of the first things our AI crawler access guide covers, and it is checked for you in the free audit.

Is Copilot SEO different from Google SEO?

Yes, more than most people expect. A strong Google ranking does not carry you into Copilot. Ahrefs studied 15,000 queries and found only about 8 percent of the URLs Copilot cited also rank in Google's top 10. Ahrefs sells SEO tools, so read that with the source in mind, but the finding works against their own product, which is a good sign it is honest.

So the two games overlap far less than the label "SEO" suggests. Google SEO is about Google's index and Googlebot. Copilot SEO is about Bing's index and Bingbot. Here is the plain side-by-side.

Notice the pattern. Almost no local business has claimed Bing Webmaster Tools, so the field is thin. The work is cheap, the competition is asleep, and the door is wide open.

What content does Copilot cite?

Copilot cites pages that answer a question clearly and early, from sources the wider web already trusts. Once Bing can read you, being chosen comes down to two things. Can Copilot lift a clean, direct answer from your page? And do other trusted places mention your business?

Why it matters. Copilot wants to give a short, confident answer with a source it can stand behind. A page that buries the answer under a long intro is hard to quote. A page that states the answer in the first two sentences is easy to quote. Clarity is what gets lifted.

The proof. Ahrefs' 75,000-brand study found that branded web mentions were the strongest correlate with AI visibility, at a Spearman r of 0.664, about three times stronger than backlinks. It is a vendor study and correlation is not causation, which Ahrefs says itself, but the direction is clear. Getting named across the web is the real work. That is the heart of how to get cited by AI, and it is the same engine behind winning in ChatGPT, which is why this page sits under our guide to how to rank in ChatGPT.

How do you show up in Microsoft Copilot, step by step?

Here is the whole process in five steps, from the technical gate to the ongoing test. Do them in order.

1. Confirm Bingbot can crawl you. Check your robots.txt and your CDN so Bingbot is not blocked. Copilot cannot cite a page Bing never read.
2. Claim Bing Webmaster Tools and submit your sitemap. Create the free account, verify your site, and hand Bing your sitemap so it indexes your pages faster.
3. Publish clear, answer-first content. Answer the real question in the first two sentences, in plain words, so Copilot can lift a clean quote.
4. Earn trusted third-party mentions. Get named on directories, local press, and industry sites, because outside mentions are the strongest correlate with AI visibility.
5. Track it with Bing's AI Performance report. Check the free AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools for your grounding queries and citation counts, and re-ask Copilot the questions your customers ask. Track the change over time. This report covers Copilot and Bing only, not ChatGPT or Gemini.

How do I check if Copilot mentions my business?

You run a manual prompt test. Open Microsoft Copilot and ask it the questions your customers ask, like the best provider for your service in your city, or who to hire for a specific job near you. Note whether Copilot names your business and which page it cites.

Do this once now to get a baseline, then again every month. If you fixed your Bing access and started earning mentions, you want to watch the trend move. Our free checklist walks you through the exact prompts to try and what to record, so the test is the same every time. That manual test is your quick read. Bing also hands you real first-party data, which is the next section.

How do I see which queries Copilot cites me for?

You open the AI Performance report inside Bing Webmaster Tools. Bing Webmaster Tools now has a free AI Performance report that shows your grounding queries and how many times Copilot cited you. It is the closest thing to a first-party AI search console, and it is one more reason to claim Bing Webmaster Tools today.

One caveat matters. The Bing AI Performance report is scoped to Copilot and Bing only. It does not show your citations in ChatGPT or in Gemini. So read the report as your Copilot scorecard, not your whole AI picture. For the full cross-engine view, see how to measure AI visibility.

What a grounding query is. When someone asks Copilot a question, Copilot breaks that question into smaller searches and pulls web pages to ground its answer. Those smaller searches are your grounding queries. Grounding queries are the real questions that led Copilot to your page.

What to do with them. Treat each grounding query as a blog brief. If Copilot keeps citing you for a question your page only half answers, write a clear page that answers that question head on. Feeding grounding queries back into your content is the tightest loop in Copilot SEO, because you are writing the exact answers Copilot is already reaching for.

Common questions about Copilot SEO