Bing and Yahoo together shares around 25 percent part of search engines weight-age on the internet. So, if you want your blog to get more visitors, Bing and Yahoo both can play a great part in achieving your goal. Though, the search algorithms of Bing and Yahoo are not much clear and rolls out rarely. But, a blogger should do each and every effort to get visitors. I have already shared my tutorial on how to submit and verify blog to Google Webmaster Tool and submitting blog sitemap to Google Webmaster Tool.
And because I’ve shared articles about Google Webmaster Tool, now it is my responsibility to guide you about submitting blog to Bing and Yahoo Webmaster Tools. One thing you may have noticed that I’ve been using Bing and Yahoo Webmaster Tools together. This is because Yahoo is now a core part of Bing network which means that Bing provides the actual search engine for Yahoo searches. We don’t need to submit blog and its sitemap to Bing and Yahoo separately, as Yahoo is the part of Bing network, we only need to submit blog and its sitemap to Bing Webmaster Tool only.
How to submit blog to Bing Webmaster Tool?
Just like Google Webmaster Tool, you can add your site URL to Bing. On this page, enter the address of your blog in the URL field. In the next box, write the CAPTCHA code and hit Submit.
So, if you entered the CAPTCHA code correctly, you will now be informed by Bing that your site URL has been added successfully.
If any error occurs, Bing will inform you about the same. After adding The URL of your site or blog you now will be prompted to sign up for further process of Webmaster Tool. Of course, you need to hit sign up.
Bing Webmaster Tool:-
To get started, on welcome screen of Bing Webmaster Tool you will need to sign in with Microsoft account. If you don’t have one you can sign up otherwise sign in with your preferred email address.
After sign in, you will now need to add your site in the Bing Webmaster Tool. So, add your blog URL along with http:// and www. After adding site to Bing you will be asked to add sitemap in the next box.
What is a sitemap?
In simple words, a sitemap is a XML file which contains all the links of your blog posts and pages at one place. Using this, Search engines get information about available relevant pages on your blog to be listed in their search results.
You need to add URL of your sitemap page here. You can generate sitemap for your blog by installing plugins like Google Sitemap Generator or WordPress SEO by Yoast. Google Sitemap Generator contains all the links of your blog whether they are pages or posts at one page while WordPress SEO by Yoast manages URL list on the basis of their type. Posts URL list is gathered at separate page, Pages URL list is gathered at another page and categories and tags also have their own division.
So, after generating sitemap URL, you need to add that in the box.
Verify your Blog:-
Next thing you do is to claim your site. It confirms Bing that you are the actual owner of the blog. So, to verify ownership of your blog you got three options. I will be discussing each and every method. So lets see:
- Verify by placing an XML file on your sites web server.
- Verify by adding the meta tag to the header section of your homepage.
- Copying the meta tag code (only) and paste it in the WordPress Tools options (Recommended and easiest one).
- Adding CNAME record to DNS
Verify by placing an XML file on your sites web server:-
In this method, you can verify your blog by downloading XML file from the Bing Webmaster Tool and uploading it to root directory of your website. You can do this by any FTP client like FileZilla tool or directly signin in to your hosting account and manually uploading it. All you need is to upload and place it in the same directory folder where your site exists. Only then, it will have its URL as /sitemap.xml etc.
Verify by adding a meta tag to the header section of your blog homepage:-
If your blog is hosted on blogger, you can go to your dashboard and click on Template section and choose edit html. Search where head tag begins. You can find exact keyword as <head>. Now copy the meta tag from Bing and paste it here (Right after <head> tag).
If you’re a WordPress host, you can go to Dashboard> Appearance> Editor.
Here you will find all php file of your blog. Look for header.php and open it. Place the meta tag right after <head> tag and save.
Come back to your Bing Webmaster Tool and Verify it.
Copying the verification code only from meta tag:-
If you are a WordPress user, This is the easiest way to verify your blog according to me. Just copy verification code from meta tag and Go to Dashboard> Tools> Place the code in the Bing Webmaster Tool box.
Now save changes. WordPress automatically adds your code to header section without any difficulty.
Adding CNAME record to DNS:-
If all the above methods did not work, you can use this last method. Here, you need to know about your DNS registrar. You should find it by contacting your hosting company or Google about it a little. Follow the on-screen instructions to get verified your blog. Although, this is little complicated method and I recommend it to use only when you have tried above described methods.
After you do above operations, kindly verify your blog by coming back to Bing page and hitting Verify. If you site is verified successfully or not, in both situations you will be informed.
Now you can see activities about your blog on Bing and Yahoo network. How many clicks you got, how many times your blog is indexed in their search results and blah blah blah. Thanks.
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