Microsoft has opened up its Bing content submission API after over two and a half years of private beta. The content submission API is different from the Bing URL submission API. The content submission API lets you submit your URLs, content, images, HTML, and more directly to Bing’s index. Microsoft said, “The API provides the ability for webmasters to notify Bing directly about the changes in their site content in real-time.”
Bing Content Submission API.
The Content Submission API is a method that enables websites to directly send content to Microsoft Bing whenever website contents are updated or created without waiting for BingBot crawl. This is different from the URL submission API. With the URL submission API, you can only send Bing URLs to crawl and index. With the Content Submission API, you send the URL and your HTML, content, images, and so on directly to Bing to index, technically bypassing the crawling process completely.
Open to all.
After expanding the beta version of this in May, Microsoft said, “With an overwhelming response and great feedback from website owners who had adopted the API, we are pleased to announce that Bing Content Submission API is now open for all to implement and to start sending their content changes to Bing, not only to reach more relevant users on Bing but also to reduce bing bot crawl load on their sites.”
API documentation.
You can learn more about technically sending this information to the Bing API within the Bing API docs. Here is a screenshot of a JSON request example:
Why use it?
Bing says it helps you get your content and pages into Microsoft Bing Search faster and “will reduce BingBot crawl load on your sites.”
How to get started.
Microsoft said you would need to request an API key within Bing Webmaster Tools. This API key can be generated from Bing Webmaster Tools by following these steps:
- Sign in to your account on Bing Webmaster Tools. If you do not already have a Bing Webmaster account, sign up today using Microsoft, Google, or Facebook IDs.
- If not already done, add & verify the site that you want to submit the URL through the API.
- Click the Settings button in the top right corner and then go to the API Access section. If you are generating the API key for the first time, please click Generate to create an API Key. Else you will see the key previously generated.
The company shared code examples in its API docs on submitting this content through the API.
Why we care.
This solution helps expedite indexing for your new or updated URLs like the Content Submission API offered. It also bypasses the crawling of that content and lets you submit content directly to the search engine. This solution might be something you want to test on your sites or client sites and see if it makes a big difference in indexing and your server resources.
