# Bingbot vs Googlebot

Bingbot and Googlebot compared on 12 documented fields, from 21 claims, last verified 2026-09-15.

| Field | Bingbot | Googlebot | Comparison |
| --- | --- | --- | --- |
| cites_sources | yes | yes | same |
| follows_noarchive | yes | not documented | different |
| honours_crawl_delay | yes | no | different |
| observed_verified_request_ratio_census | not documented | 0.991 | different |
| opt_out_mechanism | yes | not documented | different |
| publishes_ip_list | yes | yes | same |
| purpose_documented | yes | search | different |
| reads_llms_txt | not_documented | no | different |
| respects_robots_txt | yes | yes | same |
| separate_search_and_training_tokens | no | yes | different |
| user_agent_string_full | Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; bingbot/2.0; +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm) | Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html) | different |
| verifiable_by_rdns | yes | yes | same |

## Differences

| Field | Bingbot statement | Googlebot statement |
| --- | --- | --- |
| follows_noarchive | Bingbot excludes noarchive-tagged content from Copilot and Chat answers and from generative AI training data. | not documented |
| honours_crawl_delay | Microsoft states that a crawl-delay directive in robots.txt always takes precedence over Bing Webmaster Tools crawl control settings for Bingbot. | Google does not support the robots.txt Crawl-delay directive for Googlebot. |
| observed_verified_request_ratio_census | not documented | Googlebot requests to Rattlesnakes By Mail matched Google's published IP ranges on 108 of 109 requests between 2026-09-13T20:00Z and 2026-09-15T09:00Z. Googlebot's first request to Rattlesnakes By Mail in that window was /robots.txt at 2026-09-14T11:53:00Z. |
| opt_out_mechanism | Microsoft lets publishers block Bingbot content from Copilot answers and AI training using noarchive and nocache tags. | not documented |
| purpose_documented | Bingbot serves as Microsoft's standard crawler and handles most of Bing's daily web crawling. | Googlebot crawls pages for Google Search, Google Images, Google Video, Google News, and Discover. |
| reads_llms_txt | Microsoft does not publish whether Bingbot reads llms.txt files. | Google Search does not use llms.txt files. |
| separate_search_and_training_tokens | Microsoft controls Bingbot's use in AI training through meta tags rather than publishing a separate training-specific crawler token. | Google separates Search crawling under the Googlebot token from Gemini training under the Google-Extended token. |
| user_agent_string_full | Bingbot sends a user agent string containing bingbot/2.0 and a link to Microsoft's bingbot.htm page. | Googlebot sends the user agent string Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; Googlebot/2.1; +http://www.google.com/bot.html). |

## Sources

- https://blogs.bing.com/search/April-2025/Introducing-Copilot-Search-in-Bing
- https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/crawlers-fetchers/verifying-googlebot
- https://developers.google.com/search/blog/2019/07/a-note-on-unsupported-rules-in-robotstxt
- https://developers.google.com/search/docs/appearance/ai-features
- https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/google-common-crawlers
- https://developers.google.com/search/docs/fundamentals/ai-optimization-guide
- https://developers.google.com/static/crawling/ipranges/common-crawlers.json
- https://rattlesnakesbymail.com/observed/googlebot
- https://www.bing.com/toolbox/bingbot.json
- https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/ai-performance-9f8e7d6c
- https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/crawl-control-55a30303
- https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/how-to-verify-bingbot-3905dc26
- https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/robots-meta-tags-and-attributes-that-bing-supports-5198d240
- https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/which-crawlers-does-bing-use-8c184ec0