BingPreview
Microsoft •
Since 2010
Quick Actions
Official Docs
What is BingPreview?
BingPreview is Microsoft's specialized crawler that generates page snapshots and previews shown in Bing search results. This bot captures visual representations of web pages, creating the thumbnail images and preview snippets that help users decide which results to click. BingPreview works alongside regular Bingbot but focuses specifically on visual capture rather than content indexing. The crawler uses modern rendering technology to accurately capture how pages appear to users, including JavaScript-rendered content. These previews enhance the search experience by giving users a visual preview before they visit a site.
User Agent String
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/534+ (KHTML, like Gecko) BingPreview/1.0b
How to Control BingPreview
Block Completely
To prevent BingPreview from accessing your entire website, add this to your robots.txt file:
# Block BingPreview
User-agent: BingPreview
Disallow: /
Block Specific Directories
To restrict access to certain parts of your site while allowing others:
User-agent: BingPreview
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Allow: /public/
Set Crawl Delay
To slow down the crawl rate (note: not all bots respect this directive):
User-agent: BingPreview
Crawl-delay: 10
How to Verify BingPreview
Verification Method:
Same as Bingbot verification
Same as Bingbot verification
Learn more in the official documentation.
Detection Patterns
Multiple ways to detect BingPreview in your application:
Basic Pattern
/BingPreview/i
Strict Pattern
/^Mozilla/5\.0 \(Windows NT 6\.1; WOW64\) AppleWebKit/534\+ \(KHTML, like Gecko\) BingPreview/1\.0b$/
Flexible Pattern
/BingPreview[\s\/]?[\d\.]*?/i
Vendor Match
/.*Microsoft.*BingPreview/i
Implementation Examples
// PHP Detection for BingPreview
function detect_bingpreview() {
$user_agent = $_SERVER['HTTP_USER_AGENT'] ?? '';
$pattern = '/BingPreview/i';
if (preg_match($pattern, $user_agent)) {
// Log the detection
error_log('BingPreview detected from IP: ' . $_SERVER['REMOTE_ADDR']);
// Set cache headers
header('Cache-Control: public, max-age=3600');
header('X-Robots-Tag: noarchive');
// Optional: Serve cached version
if (file_exists('cache/' . md5($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html')) {
readfile('cache/' . md5($_SERVER['REQUEST_URI']) . '.html');
exit;
}
return true;
}
return false;
}
# Python/Flask Detection for BingPreview
import re
from flask import request, make_response
def detect_bingpreview():
user_agent = request.headers.get('User-Agent', '')
pattern = r'BingPreview'
if re.search(pattern, user_agent, re.IGNORECASE):
# Create response with caching
response = make_response()
response.headers['Cache-Control'] = 'public, max-age=3600'
response.headers['X-Robots-Tag'] = 'noarchive'
return True
return False
# Django Middleware
class BingPreviewMiddleware:
def __init__(self, get_response):
self.get_response = get_response
def __call__(self, request):
if self.detect_bot(request):
# Handle bot traffic
pass
return self.get_response(request)
// JavaScript/Node.js Detection for BingPreview
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Middleware to detect BingPreview
function detectBingPreview(req, res, next) {
const userAgent = req.headers['user-agent'] || '';
const pattern = /BingPreview/i;
if (pattern.test(userAgent)) {
// Log bot detection
console.log('BingPreview detected from IP:', req.ip);
// Set cache headers
res.set({
'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=3600',
'X-Robots-Tag': 'noarchive'
});
// Mark request as bot
req.isBot = true;
req.botName = 'BingPreview';
}
next();
}
app.use(detectBingPreview);
# Apache .htaccess rules for BingPreview
# Block completely
RewriteEngine On
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} BingPreview [NC]
RewriteRule .* - [F,L]
# Or redirect to a static version
RewriteCond %{HTTP_USER_AGENT} BingPreview [NC]
RewriteCond %{REQUEST_URI} !^/static/
RewriteRule ^(.*)$ /static/$1 [L]
# Or set environment variable for PHP
SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "BingPreview" is_bot=1
# Add cache headers for this bot
<If "%{HTTP_USER_AGENT} =~ /BingPreview/i">
Header set Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600"
Header set X-Robots-Tag "noarchive"
</If>
# Nginx configuration for BingPreview
# Map user agent to variable
map $http_user_agent $is_bingpreview {
default 0;
~*BingPreview 1;
}
server {
# Block the bot completely
if ($is_bingpreview) {
return 403;
}
# Or serve cached content
location / {
if ($is_bingpreview) {
root /var/www/cached;
try_files $uri $uri.html $uri/index.html @backend;
}
try_files $uri @backend;
}
# Add headers for bot requests
location @backend {
if ($is_bingpreview) {
add_header Cache-Control "public, max-age=3600";
add_header X-Robots-Tag "noarchive";
}
proxy_pass http://backend;
}
}
Should You Block This Bot?
Recommendations based on your website type:
| Site Type | Recommendation | Reasoning |
|---|---|---|
| E-commerce | Allow | Essential for product visibility in search results |
| Blog/News | Allow | Increases content reach and discoverability |
| SaaS Application | Block | No benefit for application interfaces; preserve resources |
| Documentation | Allow | Improves documentation discoverability for developers |
| Corporate Site | Allow | Allow for public pages, block sensitive areas like intranets |
Advanced robots.txt Configurations
E-commerce Site Configuration
User-agent: BingPreview
Crawl-delay: 5
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /*?sort=
Disallow: /*?filter=
Disallow: /*&page=
Allow: /products/
Allow: /categories/
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml
Publishing/Blog Configuration
User-agent: BingPreview
Crawl-delay: 10
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /drafts/
Disallow: /preview/
Disallow: /*?replytocom=
Allow: /
SaaS/Application Configuration
User-agent: BingPreview
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /api/
Disallow: /dashboard/
Disallow: /settings/
Allow: /
Allow: /pricing/
Allow: /features/
Allow: /docs/
Quick Reference
User Agent Match
BingPreview
Robots.txt Name
BingPreview
Category
search
Respects robots.txt
Yes
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