Troubleshooting Traffic Drops and Manual Actions with Bing Webmaster Tools

To troubleshoot traffic drops and manual actions using Bing Webmaster Tools (BWT), follow these key steps:

1. Check for Manual Actions and Security Issues
   In BWT, navigate to the "Security & Manual Actions" section to see if Bing has applied any manual penalties to your site. If penalties exist, address the specific issues flagged there to recover traffic.

2. Review Crawl and Indexing Status
   Use BWT’s Indexing Status and Crawl Information reports to identify crawl errors, server issues, or robots.txt misconfigurations that might prevent Bing from properly crawling or indexing your pages.

   • Verify your pages are indexed by searching site:yourdomain.com on Bing.
   • Check for crawl errors or warnings in BWT that could explain missing pages or traffic drops.

3. Use the URL Inspection and Submission Tools

   • Use the URL Inspection Tool in BWT to check if key pages are indexed and if Bingbot encountered any crawling issues.
   • If pages are missing or traffic dropped after new content or site changes, use the URL Submission feature to request reindexing of important URLs.

4. Run a Site Scan for Technical SEO Issues
   BWT’s Site Scan feature can identify technical SEO problems affecting your site’s health, such as broken links, slow loading pages, or other errors that might impact Bing’s crawling and ranking.

5. Compare with Google Search Console (GSC)
   Comparing traffic trends and issues in both GSC and BWT can help determine if the drop is due to search engine-specific factors. For example, Bing does not use Core Web Vitals as a ranking factor, so discrepancies might arise from such differences.

6. Evaluate Content Quality
   Bing may reduce rankings or visibility for low-quality, thin, or duplicate content. Ensure your content is original, relevant, and valuable to your audience.

7. Monitor Algorithm Updates and Site Changes
   Although rare, Bing algorithm updates or recent site changes (e.g., server downtime, robots.txt changes) can cause traffic fluctuations. Keep an eye on Bing Webmaster Tools notifications for any alerts.

If your site suddenly disappears from Bing search results without errors or manual actions, it may be due to technical issues or indexing delays. In such cases, verifying site ownership in BWT and resubmitting URLs often helps restore visibility.

By systematically using Bing Webmaster Tools to check manual actions, crawl and indexing status, technical SEO issues, and content quality, you can diagnose and address the root causes of traffic drops on Bing.