Let us be honest from the first line: when a small business owner thinks of search, they think of Google. Bing comes second, if it comes to mind at all.
There is one good reason to look at Bing again. Microsoft's Copilot assistant for work uses Bing's search service when it looks things up on the web. So a useful question for a local business is how many of its customers ask Copilot. Let us look at what Bing Places for Business is, how to set it up in one session, and what Microsoft itself says about the link with Copilot.
What is Bing Places for Business?
Microsoft describes it in one sentence on its Bing blog: "Bing Places for Business is a free online platform where businesses can create and manage their listings to appear in Bing search results and Bing Maps." It is Microsoft's version of Google Business Profile. Your name, address, phone number, hours, website, category and photos, shown when someone searches for you or for a business like yours.
In October 2025 Microsoft launched a redesigned version, and with it came a new address. "The domain will change from www.bingplaces.com to www.bing.com/forbusiness." If you set up a listing years ago, or somebody wrote the old address in a staff document, this is the moment to update it. The same announcement introduced a Recommendation Tool, "designed to help new business owners enrich their listings", which suggests what to add next.
Why does Bing matter when most people use Google?
This is the key part, so let us read Microsoft's own words carefully.
Microsoft's documentation for its workplace assistant explains how Copilot looks for information on the web. "When web search is enabled, Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Copilot Chat parse the user's prompt and identifies terms where information from the web would improve the quality of the response. Based on these terms, Copilot generates a search query that it sends to the Bing search service asking for more information." And, more briefly, both products "use generated search queries sent to the Bing search service to ground responses in web data."
What does this mean for a local business? Let us imagine an office manager in Surrey who asks Copilot, at her desk, for a caterer that can deliver lunch for twenty people on Friday. Copilot turns the question into a short search, sends it to Bing, and builds the answer from what comes back. If Bing knows little about your business, you are not in the material Copilot works with.
What about the Bing Places listing itself inside Copilot? Here we must be precise. Microsoft's October 2025 announcement lists "deeper integrations with Bing Maps and Copilot" among its plans for Bing Places. Microsoft has not published, in the pages we read, how listings appear inside Copilot answers today. So the safe statement is this: Copilot uses Bing search, Bing Places feeds Bing search and Bing Maps, and Microsoft plans closer links. That is reason enough to set it up.
How do you set up Bing Places in one session?
If you already have a verified Google Business Profile, the path is short. The Bing Places screen for adding a business says it directly: "Import from your Google Business Profile to get instant verification. Or search for your business on Bing to claim or add your listing manually."
- Go to bing.com/forbusiness and sign in with one of the account types the page offers.
- Choose the import from Google Business Profile.
- Sign in with the Google account that manages your profile, and allow Bing to read it.
- Select the profiles to import. A business with several locations can bring them all across at once.
- Wait for the import to finish, then open the listing and read every field.
Microsoft's announcement says the new import flow is "faster, more reliable, and better at preserving key attributes like business name, hours, and contact details." Even so, read what arrived. The Bing Places screen itself says: "Publishing time varies and multiple listings may take longer to import. You can edit after importing if details are obsolete." If your Google profile had old holiday hours or an old phone number, they came across too.
One small warning from the same interface: a Google account can be linked to only one Bing Places user. If a former agency imported your profile with its own Bing account, ask that agency or Bing Places support for help.
How do you verify without importing from Google?
Perhaps you do not use Google Business Profile, or the import failed, or you prefer to start clean. Then you search for your business on Bing, claim it if it exists, or add it if it does not, and you verify with a PIN.
The verification screen in Bing Places offers four ways to receive the PIN: by email, by text message, by a phone call, or by postal mail to the business address. You then type the PIN into your account. The screen also offers to skip verification and complete it later, but a listing that is not verified cannot use every feature, so do not leave it for long.
A practical detail for the postcard: Bing Places checks the address before sending, and shows an error if the address is incomplete or if a field is too long to print. Write the address exactly as the post office knows it.
What if Bing already shows your business with old details?
Bing Places lets you claim a listing that already exists on Bing, which means a listing can be there, with old details, before anybody at the business signs in. If you find one, do not create a second listing next to the old one. Search for your business inside Bing Places, select the existing listing, and claim it. Then verify it with the PIN and correct each field.
Two listings for the same business confuse customers, who may call the old number, and they give the search engine two different stories about the same place. One listing, claimed and correct, is the goal.
What about a business with several locations?
Bing Places was built with this case in mind. The screen for adding businesses offers three routes: "Import from your Google Business Profile or upload multiple businesses easily. You can also add one individually." The upload route uses a template file, which suits a company that keeps its locations in a spreadsheet.
For chains that verify many locations together, Bing Places asks for a company email address. The interface is specific: "Please use a corporate email address. Public email domains such as gmail.com and outlook.com are not accepted for chain verification." So if your business still uses a free email address for everything, this is one more reason to set up email on your own domain.
What should you fill in once the listing is live?
The same things that matter on Google, and in the same form. Use the business name exactly as it appears on your sign. Use the same address and the same phone number you use everywhere else. Choose the category closest to what you do. Add real hours, including holiday hours. Add photos of the place, the team and the work.
Why the insistence on "the same"? Because search engines compare what they find about you in different places, and matching details are easier for them to trust. For the website side of Bing, read our guide to Bing ranking factors.
When the listing is verified, you can also publish announcements, short notices for an offer or a piece of news. The interface says you can only create them for a verified listing, and each one can run for at most 30 days.
How do you know it is working?
Search for your business name on Bing, and then for your service and your town. Look at the map results and at the panel on the right. Is the phone number correct? Are the hours correct? Is the photo one you would choose?
Then, if you use Copilot at work, ask it a question a customer would ask, with your town in it, and look at the sources it lists. Microsoft's documentation says the web search queries appear in the citation section of Copilot Chat's answers, so you can see what Copilot asked Bing and which sites it used. If you want to follow this over months, our article on tracking your Bing Copilot citation share sets out a method.
And naturally, keep the Google profile in order first, since the Bing import copies it. Our Google Business Profile setup guide walks through every field.
How can Licheo help?
Licheo does the website, search and AI work that big companies pay whole teams for, done for your small business, and listings on Bing, Google and Apple Maps are part of that work. To see how your own website looks to search engines and AI assistants, the free Get Found Check reads your homepage, your domain's DNS records and your security certificate, and returns a grade in under 60 seconds.
Sources
- Introducing the New Bing Places for Business: Built for Business Owners, Powered by Research, Microsoft Bing Blog, 3 October 2025, accessed 29 September 2026.
- Bing Places for Business, Microsoft, interface text on the add business, import and verification screens, accessed 29 September 2026.
- Data, privacy, and security for web search in Microsoft Copilot and Microsoft Copilot Chat, Microsoft Learn, updated 18 August 2026, accessed 29 September 2026.