Checking Index Status Engine by Engine: Google and Bing, Separately

Google and Bing crawl, store and drop pages independently. Each engine's AI features draw on its own index. When a page leaves one index, the AI surfaces built on that index stop having it to cite.

Google says this plainly for its own products. As of its AI features documentation, a page must be "indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet" to appear as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode. Google adds that there are no additional technical requirements, and that indexing and serving isn't guaranteed.

The Otterly experiment shows the split in practice. OtterlyAI published about 1,000 AI-generated posts on each of two new domains in 2026 and tracked them for about four months. Google deindexed one site after roughly 14 days and the other after roughly 90, with zero manual actions reported in Search Console. Bing never deindexed either site. Otterly reports combined Bing impressions grew every month, reaching 119,935 in July.

Citations followed the indexes. Of 3,934 AI citations Otterly tracked for capybara-world.com, 2,718 (69%) came from Microsoft Copilot, which grounds on Bing. Google's AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini almost never cited the sites. Our write-up of the Otterly experiment's method and limits covers why one pair of sites can't prove more than this, and why Copilot can cite you when Google's AI doesn't explains the mechanism.

The takeaway for you: a green dashboard in Search Console says nothing about Bing, and the reverse holds too. Check both.

Run these in order. Each step catches a different failure.

1. Open the Page indexing report in Google Search Console. Look at the count of indexed pages and the reasons listed for pages not indexed. A sudden drop in indexed pages is the first sign of deindexing.
2. Inspect your most important URLs one by one. Use URL Inspection on your homepage, pricing page, main product pages and key explainers. Confirm each is indexed and that Google's chosen canonical matches yours.
3. Check the page's own controls. View the raw HTML and response headers for noindex, nosnippet, max-snippet and data-nosnippet. Google documents these as the on-page controls. A nosnippet or max-snippet:0 can keep a page out of AI answers even while it stays indexed.
4. Check robots.txt rules for Googlebot. There is no separate robots.txt token for AI Overviews or AI Mode. Googlebot rules are the control, so a Googlebot block removes you from all of them.
5. Check the generative AI inclusion control. As of October 2026, Search Console has a control for AI Overviews, AI Mode and Discover generative AI. Inclusion is the default, and child properties inherit from the parent. Confirm nobody opted a parent property out.
6. Check Manual actions anyway. In Otterly's test there were none, yet both sites were removed. An empty manual actions page does not mean you're safe.

If you suspect a full removal, the guide on how to tell if Google has deindexed your site walks through the symptoms.

Bing needs its own account and its own routine. Nothing in Search Console reflects it.

1. Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools. Without verification you can't see index status, crawl data or AI reporting.
2. Check index status for your key URLs. Use the same list of priority pages you inspected in Google. Confirm each one is indexed in Bing.
3. Check crawl errors and blocked URLs. Look for 403 responses and robots.txt blocks against bingbot.
4. Open the AI Performance report. In public preview since February 2026, it shows citations across Microsoft Copilot, AI summaries in Bing and select partner integrations. It also shows grounding queries, the phrases the AI actually used when retrieving content it cited. Microsoft notes the grounding query data is a sample. As of October 2026 there's no API for it, so export it by hand.
5. Check data-nosnippet in your templates. Bing has supported it since October 2025. Content marked with it stays indexed but is excluded from snippets and AI summaries.

If you want a quick external read first, the free index status check for Google and Bing gives a starting point before you log in to either console.

Copy this list and run it per engine. Mark each line pass or fail.

• Site verified in Google Search Console and in Bing Webmaster Tools
• Priority URLs listed (homepage, pricing, product pages, key explainers)
• Each priority URL indexed in Google
• Each priority URL indexed in Bing
• Google-chosen canonical matches your declared canonical
• No unintended noindex in HTML or the X-Robots-Tag header
• No unintended nosnippet, max-snippet:0 or data-nosnippet on content you want quoted
• robots.txt allows Googlebot and bingbot on the pages that matter
• Your CDN or firewall returns 200, not 403, to crawlers your robots.txt allows
• Google generative AI inclusion control not opted out, including inherited settings
• Bing AI Performance report reviewed and grounding queries exported
• Indexed page counts recorded with the date, for both engines

The CDN line is easy to skip and costly to miss. OpenAI's help centre says eligibility for ChatGPT search requires allowing OAI-SearchBot and confirming your host or CDN allows OpenAI's published IP addresses. A robots.txt allow means nothing behind a firewall that blocks the request. The AI Crawler Checker requests a page as each AI crawler and shows which ones the firewall turns away. Template-level tags are another common trap, covered in finding accidental noindex tags.

Good

• Indexed page counts in both consoles are stable or growing, and match the number of pages you meant to publish.
• Every priority URL shows as indexed in both engines, with the canonical you chose.
• No snippet controls on content you want AI answers to quote.
• Crawlers get a 200 response from your server, not a challenge page.

Bad

• Indexed in one engine, missing in the other. This is the Otterly pattern. Google's AI surfaces lose you while Copilot may keep citing you, or the reverse. See which AI answers use which index.
• A cliff in impressions with no notice. Otterly's capybara-world.com fell from 1,629 daily Google impressions to 15 on April 9. capybaraverse.com fell from 859 to 85 on June 26. Neither site received a warning.
• Indexed but nosnippet. The page exists in the index but can't be shown in AI answers.
• Indexed in Bing, absent from ChatGPT. In Otterly's test, ranking in Bing produced zero ChatGPT citations even with ChatGPT's crawlers visiting. Whether ChatGPT uses Bing is a hedged, partial story, not a guarantee.

What to do with a bad result

Fix the block you can see first: a stray noindex, a snippet control, a robots.txt rule, a firewall 403. If a site was removed without any of those, read Google's spam policies. Google defines scaled content abuse as many pages generated mainly to manipulate rankings without helping users. Google also says appropriate use of AI is not against its guidelines. The problem in the Otterly case was volume without value, not the tool that wrote it.

Index status drifts without anyone touching the site. Build a schedule.

• Monthly: run the full checklist and record indexed counts for both engines with the date.
• After every deploy that touches templates, headers or rendering: re-inspect priority URLs in both consoles. A noindex copied into a shared template can remove a whole section.
• After any CDN, firewall or bot-management change: re-test crawler access. Cloudflare set training and agent crawlers to blocked by default on ad-displaying pages from September 15, 2026, for new domains, new sites on existing accounts and existing free-tier customers. A site can lose AI crawler access without its owner editing anything.
• After a sharp drop in either console: check immediately, not at the next monthly review.

Keep the two engines in separate rows of your log. A blended number hides the exact split the Otterly experiment exposed.

You control access and eligibility: whether crawlers can reach your pages, whether your tags allow indexing and snippets, and whether your content is worth keeping in an index. You don't control whether either engine retrieves or cites a page for a given question. Google says indexing and serving isn't guaranteed. No index check can promise a citation.

What a clean result buys you is eligibility in both engines. That's the precondition for everything else, and it's the part you can verify yourself every month.

Is my site indexed in Bing if it's indexed in Google? Not necessarily. The two engines run separate indexes and make separate decisions. In Otterly's 2026 experiment, Google removed both test sites while Bing kept them and its impressions kept growing. The reverse can also happen, for example if a firewall blocks bingbot. Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools and check your priority URLs there directly.

Can AI engines still cite a page Google has deindexed? Yes, if they draw on a different index. In Otterly's test, Microsoft Copilot, which grounds on Bing, kept citing the sites after Google removed them, and Perplexity and Claude cited them too. Google's AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini almost never did. That fits Google's rule that a page must be indexed and snippet-eligible to appear as a supporting link.

Does a site: search confirm my index status? It gives a rough signal, not a reliable count. A site: query in Google or Bing can show whether pages appear at all, which is useful when you lack console access. For actual index membership, canonical choice and exclusion reasons, use URL Inspection in Google Search Console and the index status in Bing Webmaster Tools.

Will I get a warning before Google deindexes my site? Don't count on it. Otterly reports zero manual actions in Search Console on either test site, yet both were removed. capybara-world.com went from 1,629 daily impressions to 15 in one day. Algorithmic removal arrives without a notice, which is why recording indexed counts monthly matters: the drop in your own log is often the first alert you'll see.

Does being indexed in Bing get me into ChatGPT answers? Not reliably. OpenAI says ChatGPT search sometimes partners with other search providers, and that wording is hedged. In Otterly's test, the sites ranked in Bing and ChatGPT's crawlers visited them, but ChatGPT citations were effectively zero. For ChatGPT search, also confirm robots.txt allows OAI-SearchBot and your CDN lets OpenAI's published IP addresses through.