How to Use Bing Webmaster Tools’ AI Performance Report for Your Blog
Bing Webmaster Tools’ AI Performance report can show which pages from your site Microsoft’s AI experiences cite, along with the queries associated with those citations. Use it to spot patterns in your blog’s AI visibility and decide whether a topic deserves more attention.
Treat the report as a source of editorial clues, not a traffic or revenue dashboard. A citation means that a page appeared as a source in a measured AI response. It does not tell you how many people saw the response, clicked the citation, or became customers.
Start with the report’s scope
Open Bing Webmaster Tools, select your verified site, and look for AI Performance in the navigation. The report is in preview, so its availability and the details shown may change as Microsoft develops it.
The report covers citations observed across Microsoft AI experiences, including Microsoft Copilot and AI-generated summaries in Bing, as well as certain Microsoft partner integrations. It does not measure every AI answer, search engine, chatbot, or version of a response on the web. Nor does it reveal every prompt a person typed.
That limited scope matters when interpreting totals. A rise in citations means your pages were cited more often in the experiences Bing measures during the selected period. It does not prove that your blog gained visibility across all AI tools.
Data may also be incomplete for a particular site, page, or query. A blank result is not proof that a page has never been used as a source. Treat the report as a sample of observable activity, not a complete record of every AI citation.
Read the main dashboard metrics
The report’s headline figures summarize citation activity. Use them to orient yourself, then examine the pages and queries behind the totals.
Total citations
Total citations counts how often your site’s content was cited in the AI experiences covered by the report during the selected period. It is a count of citation appearances, not a count of distinct articles or visitors. The same page can be cited more than once, and one response may cite multiple pages.
A higher number can indicate that your content is appearing more frequently as supporting material. It does not show whether the citation was prominent, whether a user opened it, or whether the answer accurately represented your page.
Average cited pages
Average cited pages indicates the average number of distinct pages from your site cited over the reporting period. This helps distinguish broad activity across many URLs from repeated citations concentrated on a small group of pages.
If total citations rise while the average number of cited pages remains steady, a few existing pages may be receiving more citations. If both rise, a wider set of posts may be appearing in responses. Check the page-level list before drawing a conclusion; an average can conceal uneven activity.
Grounding queries
Grounding queries are the queries associated with AI responses that used your pages as sources. In other words, they provide clues about the information needs connected to your citations.
These are not necessarily exact copies of a person’s prompt. AI systems may interpret or reformulate a request, use conversation context, or retrieve information through intermediate queries. Read the listed terms as evidence of the topics and questions linked to citations, not as a full transcript of what users asked.
A query can help explain why a page is being cited. For example, a post titled “How to Prune a Young Apple Tree” might appear alongside queries about when to prune, how much to remove, or what to do with crossing branches. Those related terms can show which parts of the subject your page helps address.
Find the posts behind the totals
Move from the summary metrics to the page-level citation activity. Depending on the current report layout, you can inspect cited URLs and their associated activity, then narrow the view by date range or other available filters.
Look for patterns rather than treating the top row as a verdict:
- Repeated citations for one URL suggest that a specific post is a recurring source in measured AI responses.
- Several cited URLs on one subject may indicate that your site has useful coverage across a topic, or that separate pages answer distinct questions.
- A new URL appearing in the list can signal emerging visibility, though a small number of citations may be temporary.
- A page with many associated grounding queries may be serving several related information needs.
Open the cited page and compare its content with the query themes. Is the relevant answer easy to find? Does the article define its terms, explain the steps, and include the qualifications a reader needs? If the page is accurate and useful, citation activity may be a reason to leave it alone rather than revise it simply to chase a metric.
If multiple posts cover nearly identical questions, review whether they have distinct purposes. The report can help identify overlap, but it cannot determine whether two articles should be merged. Make that decision by reading the pages and considering their audiences, search intent, and usefulness.
Understand citation share without overreading it
Citation share can help describe how citations are distributed among pages or topics, when the report provides that view. The first question is always: What is the denominator? A share may describe a portion of citations within the selected report, site, topic, or time period. It should not be assumed to mean your percentage of all citations across Microsoft AI answers.
Use the report’s labels, filters, and explanatory text to confirm what a share represents. If the interface does not define a broader comparison set, do not interpret the figure as market share or as a comparison with competing websites. Bing Webmaster Tools reports activity associated with your verified property; it is not a complete census of every source used by an AI system.
Even within your own site, share is most useful as a relative measure. If one post accounts for a large portion of citations, that can help you identify a subject where your blog has a strong presence. A smaller share for another post does not automatically mean the article is weak. It may cover a narrower question, have had less time to accumulate activity, or simply fall outside the queries observed during the period.
Compare periods carefully
Use the date controls to compare one period with another, if the report provides that option. Comparisons can reveal whether citation activity is steady, rising, or falling, but choose periods that make sense for the subject.
A seasonal recipe or gardening post may naturally gain citations at a particular time of year. A newly published article also needs time to appear in sources. A short comparison window can make ordinary fluctuation look like a major trend.
When reviewing a change, compare more than the total:
- Check whether the number of cited pages changed.
- Look for new or disappearing URLs.
- Review grounding queries for shifts in the questions associated with citations.
- Consider whether the comparison periods are similar in length and season.
A citation increase without a corresponding increase in site visits is not a contradiction. The report measures citations in AI answers, while analytics tools measure activity on your website. A person may see a citation and never click it. The AI answer may also satisfy the person’s question without a visit.
Use Topics Portfolio as a research aid
The Topics Portfolio beta offers another way to explore the subjects associated with your site’s AI citation activity. It can help you see where your existing content is being cited and investigate related topic opportunities.
Treat its figures as directional. Topic groupings and estimates can be approximate, and some topics may have too little data to support a reliable interpretation. A topic with a low or missing figure may reflect limited reporting rather than a lack of reader interest or an absence of citations.
Use the portfolio to form a question, then check the evidence in your own content and analytics. For instance, if a topic appears in the portfolio and several cited pages address it, inspect the grounding queries and identify questions your current articles leave unanswered. Before commissioning a new post, confirm that the proposed article would serve a distinct reader need rather than repeat an existing page.
Do not treat every suggested topic as a publishing assignment. The report identifies patterns in the activity it can observe; it does not assess your editorial priorities, the accuracy of a draft, or the value of a subject to your readers.
Choose an editorial action that fits the evidence
A useful response depends on what the report shows:
- A well-performing page with relevant citations: Keep it accurate and current. Make important definitions and answers easy to locate, but avoid changes made solely to increase a citation count.
- A cited page with confusing or outdated information: Correct the material and clarify the page’s scope. Readers need reliable information whether they arrive from a search result, an AI citation, or another source.
- Several pages cited for related queries: Check whether each page answers a distinct question. Improve internal links or clarify the difference between the articles where needed.
- A recurring query your blog does not answer well: Consider updating an existing article or creating a new one if it serves a clear, unmet need.
- A sudden change supported by very little data: Wait for more observations before making a large editorial decision.
Measure the results with the right tools. Bing Webmaster Tools’ AI Performance report helps you monitor citations. Website analytics can show visits and on-site behavior, while conversion tracking can show whether those visits led to a desired action. Keep the measures separate, then consider them together when assessing a page’s overall performance.
Make citations one input, not the verdict
Bing Webmaster Tools can help bloggers see which pages are cited in Microsoft’s measured AI experiences and what grounding queries are associated with those appearances. The report’s citation counts, page activity, period comparisons, and Topics Portfolio can point toward useful subjects and pages to review.
They do not establish how many people saw a citation, whether your site gained traffic, or whether a topic will perform well in the future. Check the report’s coverage and definitions, account for small or approximate data, and use the findings to guide specific editorial decisions. The best next step may be a careful update, a clearer distinction between overlapping posts, or no change at all.
