What this crawler family is
Bingbot is a clean example of why verification matters more than labels. A request can claim to be Bingbot in the user-agent, but the stronger signal is whether Microsoft DNS infrastructure confirms that claim.
provider
Bingbot
Verify Bingbot traffic correctly, understand what IPBot can confirm through DNS, and decide how to treat Bing crawling separately from lookalike automation.
Verification and source data
IPBot uses the source inventory below to decide whether a request is merely known or fully verified.
Swipe sideways to review every verification column.
| Crawler | Intent | Verification | CIDRs | Freshness |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bingbot
Official source
| search | Reverse + forward DNS | 28
IPv4 28 / IPv6 0 | 2024-01-03 |
Whether to allow, block, or separate it
Treat verified Bingbot as trusted crawler traffic and separate it from generic bot automation. If verification fails, keep it in the known-but-unverified bucket until you review the evidence.
robots.txt guidance
Use standard `bingbot` controls in `robots.txt`, but do not assume a matching user-agent is enough to grant access.
Cloudflare and WAF guidance
Prefer rules that respect verified Bing crawler traffic only after DNS confirmation. Avoid broad user-agent-only allowlists.
Bingbot
Control through the standard `bingbot` token in `robots.txt` and crawler-specific rules.
Treat as verified only after reverse and forward DNS both confirm the Bing hostname.
FAQ
Can Bingbot be verified without a user-agent?
Yes. IPBot can verify Bingbot through reverse and forward DNS when the IP maps to a trusted Microsoft crawler hostname and resolves back to the same address.
Why not rely on the bingbot user-agent string alone?
User-agent strings are easy to spoof. DNS-backed verification is stronger evidence that the request actually belongs to Bingbot.