TL;DR Summary:
Bing AI Dashboard Launch: Microsoft launched Bing AI Performance dashboard on February 10, giving site owners first clear view of AI citations in Bing Webmaster Tools.Key Citation Metrics: Tracks total citations, average cited pages, grounding queries, page-level activity, and visibility trends across Copilot and partners.SEO Optimization Edge: Reveals AI-preferred content patterns for strategic improvements, outpacing Google's mixed AI data.Microsoft Gives Publishers First Look at AI Citation Data
Microsoft made history on February 10 when it launched the Bing AI Performance dashboard. This tool gives website owners their first clear view of how AI systems use their content.
The dashboard lives inside Bing Webmaster Tools. Any verified site owner gets access to the public preview version right now.
This move puts Microsoft ahead of Google. Google Search Console still lumps AI data in with regular search results. The Bing AI Performance dashboard treats AI citations as separate, trackable events.
What the Bing AI Performance Dashboard Shows You
The new tool tracks five key areas of AI citation activity.
Total citations show how many times AI systems referenced your site during a chosen time period. Average cited pages reveal how many unique URLs from your site get referenced each day.
Grounding queries display the phrases AI used to find your content. These aren’t what users searched for. They’re the internal queries AI systems used to pull information from your pages.
Page-level citation activity breaks down which specific URLs get cited most often. Visibility trends show how your citation numbers change over time.
The dashboard covers Microsoft Copilot, Bing AI summaries, and some partner platforms. Microsoft hasn’t named which partners yet.
What’s Missing from AI Citation Reports
The Bing AI Performance dashboard doesn’t track clicks. You see that AI systems cited your content, but you don’t know if users clicked through to your site.
The data also doesn’t show citation prominence. A page cited once in passing looks the same as a page that served as the main source for an AI answer.
Still, this beats what Google offers. Google mixes AI Overview data with regular search performance. You get no dedicated AI metrics or citation counts.
How to Use Your AI Citation Data
Cross-reference your most-cited pages with your highest-traffic pages. They probably don’t match. Pages that rank well in regular search aren’t always the ones AI systems prefer.
Look at what your top-cited pages have in common. Check their structure, depth, evidence, and update frequency. These patterns show what AI systems value from your site.
Use grounding queries to spot content gaps. If AI systems pull your content for topics you didn’t target, you’re getting lucky citations instead of strategic ones.
Compare cited pages with indexed-but-never-cited pages. If a page never appears in citation data, it might lack the structure or authority AI systems need.
Export your current numbers to set a baseline. Track changes over time to measure your optimization efforts.
SEO Community Reacts to Microsoft’s AI Reporting
Industry experts praised Microsoft’s approach. Semrush’s Leigh McKenzie noted that grounding queries and page-level data put Bing ahead of Google’s current offerings.
Seer Interactive’s Wil Reynolds confirmed the grounding queries feature works. He’s now testing what the data means and how to apply it.
Research from Semrush shows 39% of grounding queries use conversational language or longer phrases. This suggests AI systems prefer content that answers natural questions directly.
The main criticism focuses on reach. Bing and Copilot serve fewer users than Google or ChatGPT. The citation data reflects a smaller slice of AI search behavior.
Track AI Visibility Across All Platforms
The Bing AI Performance dashboard only covers Microsoft’s ecosystem. To see your brand’s performance across all AI platforms, you need broader tracking tools.
AI_Mentions monitors how your brand appears in AI responses across multiple platforms. It shows which prompts trigger mentions of your business and identifies gaps where competitors appear but you don’t.
While Bing gives you citation data from their platform, AI_Mentions reveals your complete AI visibility picture. You see patterns across ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, and other AI systems that your customers actually use.
Are you ready to discover how AI systems really talk about your brand beyond just Microsoft’s corner of the internet?
