If you only check Google Search Console, you are missing data. Not a lot of it, depending on your audience.
But missing data nonetheless. And in SEO, blind spots are how rankings slip without you noticing.
Bing Webmaster Tools is the underdog that most Singapore businesses ignore. Google's market share dwarfs Bing's, so the logic goes: why bother.
The honest answer is that Bing Webmaster Tools sometimes catches issues Google's tool misses. The data it provides for that small slice of Bing traffic is genuinely useful for diagnostic work.
Both are free, and both take ten minutes to set up. Here is what each one does well, and where they each fall short.
Key Takeaways
- Google Search Console (GSC) is non-negotiable for any site doing SEO. It shows real Google ranking data, click-through rates, and indexing status.
- Bing Webmaster Tools (BWT) covers Bing equivalent metrics. The audience is smaller, but the diagnostic data overlaps with Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT search where Bing powers the index.
- BWT's site audit and SEO recommendations are arguably more proactive than GSC's, which is more of a reporting tool.
- For sites targeting professional or enterprise audiences in Singapore, Bing traffic is non-trivial. Office-based browsing on Edge skews Bing share.
- Use both. They take a combined 20 minutes to set up and provide complementary insights.
What Google Search Console Shows You
Google Search Console is your direct line to how Google sees your site. It is operated by Google, populated by Google's crawl data, and reflects what Google actually indexes and ranks.
Source: Google Search Console official product page.
Key reports:
Performance: Real query data, click-through rates, impressions and average position for the last 16 months. This is the most valuable single dataset in any SEO toolkit.
Indexing (Pages): Which URLs are indexed, which are excluded, and why. Critical for spotting accidental noindex tags, blocked resources or thin content issues.
Sitemaps: Submit and monitor your XML sitemap. See which URLs were discovered versus indexed.
Core Web Vitals: Real-world performance data based on actual Chrome user visits. Different from PageSpeed Insights lab data, this is what Google uses for ranking signals.
Manual Actions: If Google penalises your site, you find out here. Rare for legitimate sites but worth checking quarterly.
Links: Backlink data direct from Google. Smaller than Ahrefs or Semrush, but the source is authoritative.
For a working overview of how to use this data effectively, our guide on the SEO metrics that actually matter walks through the data worth checking weekly.
What Bing Webmaster Tools Shows You
BWT mirrors most of GSC's structure, but with Bing's data. Same idea, different search engine.
Source: Bing Webmaster Tools official product page.
The unique features:
SEO Reports (proactive): BWT actively scans your site and flags SEO issues like missing meta descriptions, slow pages, duplicate titles and crawl errors. GSC tends to surface fewer of these unless you dig into specific reports.
Keyword Research Tool: A free keyword research tool built into the platform, covering Bing search volumes, related keywords and trends. Smaller dataset than the paid tools, but free and useful.
Site Scan: On-demand crawl that returns a categorised list of issues. More like a lightweight Screaming Frog than the GSC reports.
Submit URLs: You can manually submit individual URLs for indexing, at a far more generous daily allowance than Google gives you. GSC has a similar feature but with much tighter limits.
Backlinks: Bing's backlink data, comparable to GSC's but reflecting a different crawl source.
The most underrated BWT feature is the proactive SEO recommendations. Where GSC waits for you to find issues, BWT surfaces them on the dashboard.
Where the Data Differs
Both tools cover similar ground but with different perspectives.
Index size: Google indexes far more pages than Bing. If a page appears indexed in BWT but not GSC, it usually means Google deliberately excluded it (thin content, duplicate, low-value).
Ranking data: Each shows you only their own search engine's rankings. Your top GSC keywords might rank totally differently in Bing.
Performance data: GSC's Core Web Vitals come from Chrome users via the CrUX dataset, and BWT has no equivalent. For real user performance data, GSC is the source.
Penalties: Both have manual action reports, and penalties are search-engine-specific. A clean GSC does not mean clean Bing.
Mobile vs desktop: GSC tracks both extensively. BWT tracks both but Bing's audience skews more desktop, so the data balance is different.
Why Singapore Businesses Should Care About Bing
The standard objection: Bing has tiny market share in Singapore, so why bother?
Three reasons it still matters.
One: Bing powers more than just Bing. ChatGPT search uses Bing's index, and so does Microsoft Copilot. Yahoo and DuckDuckGo pull from it too.
If you care about appearing in AI search, Bing's index matters. We covered this in detail in our guide on AI search visibility tracking.
Two: Office-based audiences. Microsoft Edge ships as the default browser on Windows, and many Singapore corporate environments keep it. Edge defaults to Bing.
If you sell to professionals, Bing traffic is meaningful even if the percentage looks small.
Three: It is free and takes ten minutes. The opportunity cost of setting up BWT is essentially zero. The downside of skipping it is missed diagnostic data.
Setting Up Both: Quick Walkthrough
If you have GSC set up already, BWT can import your data directly.
- Go to bing.com/webmasters and sign in with a Microsoft account.
- Click "Import sites from Google Search Console" and authorise the connection.
- Bing imports your verified properties and begins crawling.
That's the entire setup. From scratch (without GSC), the manual verification takes another few minutes via DNS or HTML file upload.
For brand new sites, set up GSC first. It is the priority.
Once GSC is verified and pulling data, the BWT import is trivial.
What Each Tool Misses
Even using both, there are blind spots.
Neither tool shows you:
- Real-time ranking changes (you need a rank tracker for that)
- Competitor data (you need Ahrefs, Semrush or Moz)
- Detailed backlink quality scoring
- AI search citations (Perplexity, ChatGPT, Claude responses)
- Local pack rankings (you need a local rank tracker)
If you are doing serious SEO services work, GSC and BWT are the foundation, not the full toolkit.
How Often to Check Each
For most Singapore SMEs:
GSC: weekly. Performance report for new keyword opportunities, Indexing report for any new errors, Core Web Vitals when you push site changes.
BWT: monthly. SEO Reports section for any new issues, performance overview, and any manual actions.
Set calendar reminders. The data does not surface itself, and small problems compound into big ranking losses if you ignore the alerts.
Both Tools, Together, Cost You Nothing
The strongest argument for using both is the price tag. Both tools are free, both come from major search engine operators, and both provide diagnostic data you cannot get anywhere else.
If you are not using both, you are leaving free signal on the table. Start with GSC if you have not already, then add BWT next.
The data is only half the job, though. A Singapore SEO expert turns those raw reports into decisions, which is the part the dashboards will never do for you.
If your reports are surfacing issues you don't know how to interpret, that's where outside expertise pays for itself. Talk to our team and our GEO agency can review your GSC and BWT data together and translate it into a prioritised action list.
Having an SEO consultant read your GSC and BWT exports side by side means the two dashboards stop contradicting each other and start pointing at the same fixes.
