Bing Places for Business is Microsoft's free tool for claiming and managing how your business shows up across Bing search, Bing Maps, and Microsoft's Copilot local answers — the same basic idea as Google Business Profile, just running on Microsoft's index instead of Google's. If you've already built out a Google Business Profile, setting up Bing Places is a short, low-effort task with a real (if smaller) upside, because it's currently one of the few local-search surfaces most competitors still haven't claimed.
What it actually is
Microsoft rebuilt the platform from the ground up in late 2025, retiring the old bingplaces.com portal in favor of a unified experience at bing.com/forbusiness. Search Engine Journal's coverage of the relaunch describes the new version as built specifically to fix discoverability and usability complaints from business owners, with a proper dashboard, bulk-editing tools for agencies managing multiple locations, and real-time status updates on your listing instead of the old black-box submission process.
Functionally, it's a directory record: business name, address, phone number, hours, category, photos, and a short description, all pulled together into a profile that Microsoft uses to answer "near me" and local-intent queries. Microsoft's own announcement also introduced a recommendation tool that flags specific gaps in your listing — missing photos, a missing website link, incomplete hours — rather than leaving you to guess what's hurting it.
Why it's worth bothering with at all
Bing's market share of general web search is small next to Google's. That's not the point. Bing Places data is what feeds local results across Bing search, Bing Maps, and — per Microsoft's own announcement — increasingly Copilot, Microsoft's AI assistant baked into Windows, Edge, and Microsoft 365. As more people ask an AI assistant "who's a good roofer near me" instead of typing it into a search box, having an accurate, claimed listing in the index that assistant draws from is cheap insurance. Microsoft has said deeper integration between Bing Places and Copilot is coming, which makes this a better time to claim your listing than to wait.
There's also a competitive angle worth naming directly: because Bing Places gets a fraction of the attention Google Business Profile does, most small businesses haven't claimed or updated theirs. An unclaimed or outdated Bing listing is a wide-open door for a competitor with a current, complete one — and building a complete listing there takes you fifteen minutes, not a marketing budget.
Setting it up: the Google import shortcut
You don't have to rebuild your listing from scratch. Bing Places lets you import directly from an existing Google Business Profile — name, address, phone, hours, category, photos, and description come across in one pass instead of manual re-entry. Sign in at bing.com/forbusiness with a Microsoft account, choose the option to import from your Google listing, and confirm the details Bing pulls over before submitting.
One thing worth knowing going in: this is a one-time import, not a live sync. If you change your hours or add new photos to Google Business Profile next month, Bing Places doesn't pick that up automatically — you'll need to update both, or re-run the import periodically. If NAP consistency (name, address, phone) matters to you across directories — and it should — treat Bing Places the same way you'd treat any other citation that needs periodic checking. We cover the broader version of that problem in our citation finder guide.
Verification: what to expect
Bing verifies ownership through one of three methods: phone, email, or postcard, depending on what's available for your listing. According to Microsoft's own support documentation, phone and email verification are typically near-instant — Bing sends a code you enter on the spot. Postcard verification, when that's the only option offered, works the way it sounds: Microsoft mails a physical card with a code to your business address, and it typically takes about two weeks to arrive. There's no way to force phone or email verification if Bing only offers postcard for your listing type, so build the possible two-week wait into your expectations rather than treating it as a failure.
How it compares to Google Business Profile
Don't treat Bing Places as a replacement for Google Business Profile — for the overwhelming majority of local service businesses, Google is still where most of the search volume and most of the review activity lives, and that's not changing soon. Bing Places is additive, not competitive. The two platforms don't talk to each other beyond that one-time import, they have separate review pools, and separate dashboards to maintain. Where they're similar: both reward a complete, accurate, actively maintained profile over a bare-minimum listing, and both feed local-intent answers on their respective platforms rather than general organic search results. If you already have a solid handle on what local SEO actually requires, Bing Places slots into that same maintenance routine — just a second listing to keep current, not a second strategy to build.
Is it worth the time?
For most local service businesses, yes — with realistic expectations. The setup itself is closer to fifteen minutes than an afternoon, thanks to the Google import. The payoff isn't going to rival what a complete, review-rich Google Business Profile does for your call volume. But an accurate Bing Places listing takes almost nothing away from your day, closes a gap most of your competitors are leaving open, and positions your business in the index that Copilot and Windows search are increasingly pulling from. Treat it the way you'd treat any other free, low-effort citation: worth doing once, worth checking again a couple of times a year.
Want a second set of eyes on your full local listing setup, not just Bing? See how TBS approaches local SEO or get in touch directly.