Bing Adds Controls Allowing Webmasters To Ban Their Content In Bing Chat

The internet is full of information, and search engines play an important role for users looking for answers.

Bing, Microsoft’s search engine, recently introduced innovative controls that give webmasters and website owners an unprecedented level of control over how their content is used in Bing Chat.

This update allows website creators to decide whether their content should be used for AI training purposes in Bing Chat or not.

In this article, we will take a detailed look at these new options offered by Bing to webmasters.

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How Controls Allow Webmasters To Block Or Include Their Content In Bing Chat

Bing Chat, since its launch, has enjoyed a very warm reception. However, concerns have arisen recently among webmasters and publishers regarding access and use of their content.

OpenAI for its part introduced GPTBot, thus marking a major turning point by allowing publishers to block the OpenAI user agent via the robots.txt file On-Page Optimization: This involves optimizing your website and local search engine optimization service meta tags, and HTML structure to make it search engine-friendly.

Microsoft followed this initiative by also taking steps to provide publishers with greater control over the visibility of their content in Bing Chat.

The move allows content creators to more effectively manage their presence in Bing Chat, which should ease growing concerns around managing their intellectual property and online content.

However, unlike GPTBot, which required modification of the robots.txt file, Microsoft relied on web standards already in place . These include the NOARCHIVE and NOCACHE meta tags .

This approach now allows publishers to make confident decisions not only about the use of their content in Bing Chat, but also when training Microsoft’s core generative AI models.

Now let’s see how these new Bing controls work:

Default Settings

Webmasters who do not do any configuration, that is, who do not use the “ nocache ” tag or the “ noarchive ” tag , will continue to see their content appear in Bing Chat responses.

This could not only increase the visibility of content on Bing Chat, but also help improve the quality of responses generated by this AI bot.

Additionally, it should be noted that this content could also be leveraged to enrich the training of Microsoft’s generative artificial intelligence models.

NOCACHE Tag

Nocache markup allows related content to appear in Bing Chat replies, but it limits display to only the URL, snippet, and title.

This specific content is used to enrich the learning of the fundamental models of Microsoft’s generative AI.

NOARCHIVE Tag

Microsoft adds controls to disallow content in Bing Chat

Content identified by the “ noarchive ” tag will no longer be able to appear in responses generated by Bing Chat. Additionally, these contents will not contribute to training Microsoft’s core generative AI models.

Combined Tags

When webmasters choose to use both the ” nocache ” and ” noarchive ” tags, Microsoft interprets the content as exempt from caching (nocache).

Bing-specific Tags

Website administrators also have the ability to request Bing for special treatment of content using the nocache attribute .

The Impact Of Applying Controls On The Bing Search Results Page

Publishers have expressed concerns about their content displaying in Bing SERPs after these new controls are applied.

Microsoft, in response to this concern, is ensuring that content marked with the ” nocache ” or ” noarchive ” tags will continue to appear in book marketing agency traditional Bing search results.

Thus, the company strives to reconcile the needs of publishers with those of users while maintaining the integrity of its search results.

In Summary

To conclude, the new control options offered by Bing to webmasters to disable their content in Bing Chat mark an important step towards more transparent and autonomous management of online content.

This initiative aims to give website owners greater control over how their content is used, while ensuring a relevant search experience for users.