Hi @AndyRussG - you mentioned that "[Bing] has an option to import domain verifications from Google Search Console"; is there another option, such as doing the Bing domain verification separately from anything Google-related? That would be preferrable I think. Otherwise, it sounds like this may have the potential to share non-public data that Google has for our properties, to Microsoft, and therefore I think the most prudent would be to ask for the Legal/Privacy team to evaluate and clear this ask. Hope that makes sense - thanks!

Thanks so much, @faidon! Yes, there is another option, and yes, agreed it would definitely be preferable. The other option is, "Add your site manually: Add your site to Bing Webmaster tools by making detectable changes on your site."

(I just thought I'd ask, in case the OAuth method via Google Search Console were already an established approach here.)

Also btw I did sign in to the Bing Webmaster Tools using my Wikimedia (Google-based) e-mail (without sharing any data of course, as mentioned). There are also options to sign in with a Microsoft or a Facebook account.

Thanks again!!

Hi again @faidon! A few more notes here... For the "Add your site manually" option, available methods for verification are:

1. add a small XML file to a site's root directory;
2. add an HTML Meta tag; or
3. add a CNAME record to DNS.

I'm also available to help with any of these in any manner that might be deemed appropriate. I do have deployer rights, so perhaps I could perform the first action myself, if you like.

Has anyone from the organization ever accessed our Bing Webmaster Tools before? Maybe this is completely new for us?

BTW I'd also understand if this is considered to be below the threshold of whatever priority level is required to justify the effort or disruption...

Thanks so much once again!! :)

Has anyone from the organization ever accessed our Bing Webmaster Tools before? Maybe this is completely new for us?

Based on Faidon's reponse, the (lack of) documentation we have, and the lack of references to Bing or Microsoft on our dns, that seems the case.

Hey, @AndyRussG -technically wise, I can help you doing the patch- I think a DNS update will be the most practical approach- not only will be the safest and easiest, it is how google was verified, as it will be not easily "lost".

However, probably we should be the ones to create the first account with a well maintained shared admin email account, and if access works like the the Google console, provide you access to your own account. Allow me to research it a little more, as this will be a new workflow, requiring documentation, etc.

Fantastic, thanks so so much @jcrespo! Pls don't hesitate to reach out if there's anything at all that I can help with! :) :)

In T298723#7683702, @jcrespo wrote:

@AndyRussG I've checked the steps, setup and management. It is very similar to Google Search Tools. Regarding the technical setup and user management/access requests, it is something that I don't think there is any issue with SRE doing it (although it may need extra documentation), and I myself offer to help setup.

Cool, thanks so so much!! :)

However, I've seen some setup steps that seem they requires SEO knowledge and familiarity with the current Google Search Tools, and that if done wrong could impact negatively the reachability of sites from Bing, and for that I am not confident enough to do it on my own (e.g. defining a site.xml, etc.).

Ah ok thanks for taking care with this... Can you describe any more details about these steps? (For Google, it seems that XML sitemaps are not in use, at least according to T198965.)

I believe in the past, the heaviest users of Google Search Tools were Reading, or maybe Product analytics, Data Engineering, as well as Trust and Safety (there may be others). I wonder if you could reach (some) of them to kind of assist me with the initial setup and make sure we don't break anything as administrator? Sorry, as this is a complete new setup, I think we should sync with all interested parties for the read-write part of it (to prevent traffic being affected, even if a small part of it).

Yep, I can definitely reach out to them.

Sorry about this, once the first setup is done, I checked that having a read only account should be easy for what you need (stats gathering).

All good, thanks so much once again! :)

In T298723#7683849, @AndyRussG wrote:

Ah ok thanks for taking care with this... Can you describe any more details about these steps? (For Google, it seems that XML sitemaps are not in use, at least according to T198965.)

Reading https://kinsta.com/blog/bing-webmaster-tools/ it looked as if providing a sitemap was compulsory, but at https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/add-and-verify-site-12184f8b doesn't seem to be the case.

Still, I think having someone familiar with how the Google Tools were setup, checking crawling errors, etc. would be nice.

Thanks again @jcrespo! I tried to find a Phab task about the original Google Search Console setup, to see who might have been involved in that, but I couldn't find one. The history of the documentation page on Wikitech only goes back to 2018, though I suppose some of the contributors there might have some insight. My access to GSC was set up by @Dzahn. I hope this helps!!! I can also look at recent technical SEO tasks to see who might know about these details.

I am not familiar with how the Google Tools were setup. I just did that as an access request because I happened to be on clinic duty that week and clicked a lot of times on "delegate access".

In T298723#7683885, @jcrespo wrote:

In T298723#7683849, @AndyRussG wrote:

Ah ok thanks for taking care with this... Can you describe any more details about these steps? (For Google, it seems that XML sitemaps are not in use, at least according to T198965.)

Reading https://kinsta.com/blog/bing-webmaster-tools/ it looked as if providing a sitemap was compulsory, but at https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/add-and-verify-site-12184f8b doesn't seem to be the case.

Still, I think having someone familiar with how the Google Tools were setup, checking crawling errors, etc. would be nice.

That might be pretty difficult. Google tools (and their varying changed names throughout the years) have been set up pretty long ago (at least pre 2013). I 'd suggest to not block this on waiting for someone with the prior experience.

Thanks so so much once again, @Dzahn, @jcrespo, @akosiaris, @faidon, hugely appreciated!!!! As before, please don't hesitate to reach out if I can help in any way! :) :)

@dr0ptp4kt your name has come up as someone with knowledge of search-related things. Do you have any concerns about us setting up a Bing webmaster tools account for WMF, please? [in particular if I'm likely to wreck our search rankings or somesuch while doing so]

Thanks all. @MatthewVernon I'm delegating responsibility on research and response on this to my direct report, @SCherukuwada (Senior Engineering Manager, Web team), who is also familiar with similar things from GSC land and who I've also asked to help streamline things in the Yandex system as well. Thanks again!

I'm working on this, please stay tuned on this ticket; ETA tomorrow.

Wooohooo thanks so much once again, everyone!!! :) :)

Just filed https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T302617 to start discussing domain ownership verification on various consoles with SRE. I'll be unavailable for a few days starting now, but I've already had a discussion with @AndyRussG about this.

I see in T302617#7756075 that Bing got completed.
@SCherukuwada, could you take care of granting access to @AndyRussG for this one of request?

Going forward I don't know who will be in charge of access request, if it's SRE we would need to grant admin to noc@ (or better) and have documentation (such as https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Google_Search_Console_access) maybe to be discussed in T302617 or new parent task.

@ayounsi A proper process has to be setup for this, which is not yet in place, it is being worked now, as you said, at T302617.

Update: @AndyRussG already has access to Bing, as of yesterday. I'm working on a process to follow if/when more people request access.

Thanks so so much, @SCherukuwada, @jcrespo, @akosiaris, @Dzahn, @faidon , @MatthewVernon and everyone else who contributed to this! Hugely, hugely appreciated!!!!!! :) :)