How Microsoft Copilot Chooses Its Sources

Short answer

Microsoft Copilot grounds its answers in Bing. When a question needs web information it turns your prompt into a short search query, sends it to Bing, and writes an answer with citations to the pages it used. So Copilot visibility starts with Bing visibility: let Bingbot crawl you, get indexed, and make pages clear enough to quote. Bing Webmaster Tools now has an AI Performance report that shows how often your pages are cited.

Key takeaways

Microsoft says Copilot experiences are powered by Bing's search index, and Microsoft 365 Copilot sends a short keyword query to the Bing Search Service.
Bing's guidelines say blocking Bingbot, duplicate URLs and content that can't be reliably rendered reduce the chance of being selected for grounding or citation.
NOARCHIVE keeps your content out of Copilot responses. NOCACHE limits Copilot to your URL, title and snippet.
Bing Webmaster Tools' AI Performance report (February 2026) shows total citations, cited pages and the queries Copilot used to find you.

What is Copilot, and where do its answers come from?

Copilot is a family of Microsoft products. Copilot Search in Bing, launched on April 4, 2025, blends traditional and generative search and cites its sources prominently, with the passages in an answer linked to the pages behind them. Microsoft 365 Copilot adds web search for work use. Microsoft says both draw on Bing for web information.

Microsoft's advertising team says experiences like Microsoft Copilot are powered by Bing's search index. Its Microsoft 365 documentation describes the steps: if Copilot judges that web information would improve a response, it generates a short query of a few words from your prompt and sends it to the Bing Search Service, and users can see both the citations and the exact keywords used. In February 2026, a Microsoft corporate vice president for Search and AI wrote that Microsoft's grounding powers nearly every major AI assistant. That's Microsoft's own claim and we haven't verified it, but it's one more reason to care about Bing.

Microsoft also says AI search changes what is ranked. Ranking still happens, but it's less about ordering whole pages and more about which pieces of content earn a place in the final answer. Copilot breaks pages into smaller parts, evaluates them for authority and relevance and assembles an answer, often from several sources.

What does Bing say makes a page selectable?

Bing's webmaster guidelines now include a grounding section. These are the parts that matter for Copilot:

Guideline	What to do
Allow Bingbot to crawl and render	Don't block Bingbot in robots.txt. Don't hide critical content behind client-side rendering. Content that can't be reliably rendered may not be indexed or selected for grounding
Avoid duplicate URLs	Use canonical URLs and consistent structure. Duplicates dilute signals and reduce Bing's confidence in selecting a URL
One topic per URL	Align title, headings and content intent
Surface key information early	Put essential facts near the top and avoid long introductions
Make content stand alone	State facts and definitions explicitly, and keep important information visible on the page itself
Define entities consistently	Use clear, consistent names for people, organizations and products
Keep content fresh	Update when facts change, and notify IndexNow when content is added, updated or deleted
Use structured data accurately	It may support clearer grounding but doesn't guarantee visibility, and must match visible content

Bing also warns that thin, ad-heavy or affiliate-only URLs may lose ranking eligibility and grounding visibility.

Microsoft's content guidance for AI search adds format advice. Use descriptive H1, H2 and H3 headings, ideally phrased as the questions people ask. Give direct questions short, direct answers. Use lists and comparison tables. Write sentences that still make sense when pulled out of context. And avoid hiding answers in tabs or expandable menus, putting core information only in PDFs, or leaving key details only in images. Microsoft is clear there's no secret strategy that guarantees selection.

How do you control how Copilot uses your content?

Bing's directives work at page level:

NOINDEX keeps a URL out of Bing search, Copilot experiences and grounding results.
NOARCHIVE prevents your content from being used in Copilot responses and grounding results.
NOCACHE limits Copilot to your URL, title and snippet. Bing says this reduces citation depth and answer quality, so avoid it on pages you want cited in full.
NOSNIPPET and data-nosnippet prevent captions and may limit citation quality.

Microsoft said when it introduced NOCACHE and NOARCHIVE in 2023 that pages carrying them still appear in Bing search results. Bing's crawler page lists Bingbot, AdIdxBot, BingPreview, MicrosoftPreview and BingVideoPreview, and no separate Copilot crawler, so Bingbot is the crawler to manage in robots.txt. The free AI Crawler Checker tests whether Bingbot gets in.

How do you see your Copilot citations?

Bing Webmaster Tools has an AI Performance report, launched in public preview on February 10, 2026. It covers Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and select partner integrations, and shows:

Total citations, the times your content was shown as a source.
Average cited pages, the unique pages cited per day.
Grounding queries, a sample of the phrases the AI used when retrieving your content.
Page-level citation activity and trends over time.

In June 2026 Microsoft added Intents, Topics, Citation Share and Compare. Citation Share is the percentage of citations on a grounding query that go to your site, out of all citations shown. Microsoft describes these as observational metrics, not a ranking or scoreboard, and says they don't expose competitor domains.

Citepoint's tracking covers ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and AI Mode. Copilot isn't one of them, so Bing Webmaster Tools is the right place to measure it.

How do you get cited by Copilot?

Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools and open the AI Performance report.
Check that Bingbot can reach and render your pages, and that you aren't blocking it.
Submit a sitemap and use IndexNow so new and changed pages are found quickly.
Rewrite key pages answer-first: one topic, the answer in the opening lines, specifics and a date. See how to write content AI quotes.
Fix duplicate URLs with canonicals and redirects.
Use the grounding queries to see what Copilot searches for when it cites you, then cover the gaps.

Frequently asked questions

Does Copilot use Google or Bing?

Microsoft says Copilot experiences are powered by Bing's search index, and Microsoft 365 Copilot sends its web queries to the Bing Search Service. Visibility in Bing is the starting point.

Does blocking Bingbot remove me from Copilot?

Bing's guidelines list blocking Bingbot among the things to avoid, and say content that can't be reliably accessed may not be indexed or selected for grounding results.

Is IndexNow required?

No, but Microsoft recommends it. It notifies participating search engines when content is added, updated or deleted, which helps AI answers reference the current version of a page.

Does schema markup help Copilot?

Microsoft says structured data may support clearer grounding but doesn't guarantee visibility or grounding traffic. The markup has to match what's visible on the page.

Does Citepoint track Copilot?

No. Citepoint tracks ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity, Google AI Overviews and Google AI Mode. For Copilot, use the AI Performance report in Bing Webmaster Tools.