Today, we are announcing the release of new features for the Bing Webmaster tools. These features are a direct response to feedback we’ve received since our launch last month which was announced in Anthony’s “A New Beginning: Bing Webmaster Tools” blog post.
The loudest feedback was, “I want to download my data!” . . . so, we’ve added a new data export capability which enables you to export and download data from Bing Webmaster Tools about your registered sites. You can export up to six months of data in the form of a downloadable, comma-delimited CSV file. The following data downloads are available by selecting the ‘Export’ button in the UI:
|
Type |
Available data fields |
|
Export Crawl, Index, and Traffic Stats |
Date, Pages Crawled, Pages with Crawl Errors, Pages Indexed, Impressions, Clicks |
|
Export Queries |
Query, Impressions, Clicks, Click-Through Rate |
|
Export Crawl Details |
URL, HTTP Code, Type |
|
Export Sitemaps |
Name, Date Submitted, Type, Status |
|
Export Blocked URLs |
URL, Entity Type, Block Type, Date |
|
Export Query String Parameters |
Parameter, Date |
|
Export Registered Sites |
Registered URL, Site verification status, verification code used |
The second area we received consistent feedback on is allowing more control of how Bing crawls your sites. We’ve added a “Crawl Settings” page, and the first setting made available is “Add Query String Parameters.” As you likely know, query string parameters in URLs can result in multiple variations of a URL all pointing to the same content. Site owners can now add query string parameters that can be ignored when indexing their sites, thus gaining multiple advantages: it prevents duplicate content in the Bing index, it avoids having a page’s index value split between multiple URL variations, and avoids unnecessary site bandwidth usage by the search crawler.
We have many additional features planned for the coming months . . . but we are listening closely to, and adjusting our plans based on your input and feedback. Continue to express yourself by sending us feedback, suggestions, and questions either through blog comments or the Bing Webmaster Tools & Feature Requests forum.
— Steve Tullis, Senior Program Manager Lead, Bing Webmaster Tools
