Safe Official docs Search Engines

Bing Video Preview

Operated by Microsoft

Quick Facts

User-Agent:
BingVideoPreview
Category:
Search Engines
Operator:
Microsoft
Safety:
Safe
Blocking Impact:
Low - No SEO ranking impact
SEO Impact Score:
2/10
Official docs:
www.bing.com

Confirmed by the operator

Microsoft names BingVideoPreview on its own documentation page, linked above. The token, purpose and robots.txt behaviour on this profile come from that page, re-checked on October 19, 2026.

What is Bing Video Preview?

Bing Video Preview is an AI search-index crawler operated by Microsoft. It collects and indexes web content so it can be surfaced as citations or answers inside Microsoft's AI search experience. Allowing Bing Video Preview can increase your visibility in AI-powered search results, which is why most sites choose to permit it.

Bing Video Preview is an AI search-index crawler operated by Microsoft. It collects and indexes web content so it can be surfaced as citations or answers inside Microsoft's AI search experience. Allowing Bing Video Preview can increase your visibility in AI-powered search results, which is why most sites choose to permit it.
Bing Video Preview uses the user-agent token BingVideoPreview. You can control it via robots.txt, meta tags (noai), or the emerging llms.txt standard. Robots.txt is voluntary; for hard enforcement, combine it with server-level IP blocking.

What happens if you block Bing Video Preview?

🔶 AI Visibility Trade-off - Blocking Bing Video Preview will not hurt Google or Bing rankings, but it can remove your content from AI search answers and assistant citations powered by this crawler. Block only if you have a deliberate reason.
Generally safe to allow; provides legitimate crawling value.

How to block Bing Video Preview with robots.txt

<code>User-agent: BingVideoPreview</code> - Matching is case-insensitive. Robots.txt is fetched from the root of each subdomain separately.

Block completely (robots.txt)
User-agent: BingVideoPreview Disallow: /
Allow all (robots.txt)
User-agent: BingVideoPreview Allow: /
Block private only (robots.txt)
User-agent: BingVideoPreview Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /api/ Disallow: /admin/ Allow: /
Nginx server block
# Nginx: Hard-block Bing Video Preview if ($http_user_agent ~* "BingVideoPreview") { return 403 "Bot blocked"; }
Apache .htaccess
# Apache: Hard-block Bing Video Preview SetEnvIfNoCase User-Agent "BingVideoPreview" bad_bot Order Allow,Deny Allow from all Deny from env=bad_bot
Meta robots tag
<meta name="robots" content="noindex, nofollow">
X-Robots-Tag header
X-Robots-Tag: noindex, nofollow

Is Bing Video Preview safe to allow?

Yes, Bing Video Preview is a safe and legitimate crawler operated by Microsoft. It follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309) and can be controlled with standard robots.txt rules.
Verify by reverse-DNS lookup: legitimate Bing Video Preview requests resolve to Microsoft's domain.

What does Bing Video Preview do?

Understanding Bing Video Preview's purpose helps you decide whether to allow or block it.

  • Indexes web pages for AI-powered search answers
  • Surfaces your content as citations inside AI search results
  • Builds a knowledge index used to answer user questions
  • Allowing it can increase visibility in AI search
  • Respects robots.txt directives

Bing Video Preview in context

Bing Video Preview is a search engine crawler operated by Microsoft. In plain terms, it builds a search or answer index. Our database files it under search engines and ranks it Tier 3, mid-priority crawlers with a clear purpose but a smaller audience. 62 of the 63 search engines in our database share this tier.

Its safety rating is safe and its blocking impact is not documented. So the decision about Bing Video Preview rests on what you want from Microsoft, not on its behaviour. How we rate safety and impact.

How site owners treat Bing Video Preview

Our robots.txt study of the Tranco top 10,000 did not track BingVideoPreview as a named token, so we do not publish an adoption figure for it. If you run a large site, your own logs are the best evidence of how often it visits.

Does it follow robots.txt?

Bing Video Preview's operator does not clearly document how it treats robots.txt. Write the Bing Video Preview rule anyway, then confirm in your logs that its requests stop.

Microsoft crawlers and close alternatives

Bing Video Preview is one of 6 Microsoft crawlers in our database. A User-agent: BingVideoPreview group controls Bing Video Preview only; the other Microsoft tokens below need their own lines.

  • BingVideoPreview: this crawler (Tier 3)
  • AdIdxBot: Bing Ads Crawler, checks pages for an SEO, uptime or analytics service (Tier 3)
  • AzureAI-SearchBot: Azure AI Search, builds a search or answer index (Tier 2)
  • bingbot: Bing Search, builds a search or answer index (Tier 3)
  • BingPreview: Bing Page Snapshot, builds a search or answer index (Tier 3)
  • MicrosoftPreview: Microsoft Preview, fetches a page to build a link preview when someone shares it (Tier 3)

To give Bing Video Preview the same answer as its siblings, stack User-agent: BingVideoPreview with their lines above one set of rules; to treat Bing Video Preview differently, give it its own group.

Other search engines that do the same job (builds a search or answer index) include Amzn-SearchBot from Amazon, Applebot from Apple, baidu from Baidu, Baiduspider from Baidu, Baiduspider-favo from Baidu, Baiduspider-image from Baidu. Deciding about Bing Video Preview is usually a decision about the whole group, so check how your file treats these too.

We first recorded BingVideoPreview on September 22, 2026. Microsoft documents it on bing.com, and we recheck that page before each release.

Which rule Bing Video Preview actually follows

Bing Video Preview reads exactly one group in robots.txt, the most specific one that names BingVideoPreview, and never combines rules across groups. This short file shows the trap:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/

User-agent: BingVideoPreview
Disallow: /drafts/
  1. Find the group. Bing Video Preview looks for a group naming BingVideoPreview. One exists, so it ignores User-agent: * completely.
  2. Apply only that group. It is refused /drafts/ and nothing else.
  3. The surprise. /private/ is open to Bing Video Preview, because that rule lives in the * group it no longer reads. To keep it out of both, repeat Disallow: /private/ inside its own group.
Test yourself: does a rule under User-agent: * apply to Bing Video Preview if the file also has a User-agent: BingVideoPreview group?

No. Once a group names it, Bing Video Preview reads only that group. Put every rule you want it to follow inside its own group.

Test yourself: will blocking Bing Video Preview remove your pages from AI answers?

Often, yes. Bing Video Preview is a search engine crawler, so pages it cannot fetch can drop out of the answers or results it supports.

Test yourself: is User-agent: bingvideopreview the same as User-agent: BingVideoPreview?

Yes. RFC 9309 makes user-agent matching case-insensitive. Paths are a different story: Disallow: /Blog/ does not block /blog/.

Should you allow Bing Video Preview? Decide by situation

Recommended setting for Bing Video Preview by type of site
If you are...Recommended setting
You publish content and want AI answers to cite itAllow it. It is how this search engine finds your pages.
You license content and want to stop AI trainingBlocking it does not stop training, because Bing Video Preview is a search engine crawler. Block the operator's training crawler instead.
You run an online shopAllow it unless it is overloading your servers.
Your server is under load from botsRate-limit before blocking. It is rated safe in our database.

Check Bing Video Preview on your own site

  1. Open /robots.txt on your domain and search for BingVideoPreview. If it is not named, it follows User-agent: *.
  2. List the Disallow lines in the group Bing Video Preview follows and test your key URLs against them; the longest match wins, and Allow wins a tie.
  3. Look beyond the file. A firewall or bot manager can refuse Bing Video Preview even when robots.txt allows it, and that never shows in the file.
  4. Run our AI crawlability checker to see how Bing Video Preview and every other crawler we track are treated in one pass, including firewall refusals.

Common mistakes with Bing Video Preview

The errors we see most often with Bing Video Preview in the files and firewalls we test:

  1. Blocking Bing Video Preview to save bandwidth and then wondering why pages drop out of that search engine. Use crawl-rate settings or caching first.
  2. Writing a User-agent: BingVideoPreview group to add one rule for Bing Video Preview and accidentally dropping every rule it used to follow under User-agent: *.
  3. Disallowing CSS and JavaScript folders, which can stop Bing Video Preview rendering your pages properly.

All three hide inside a file that looks correct, so check Bing Video Preview from outside after every change.

Spotting Bing Video Preview in your logs

robots.txt says what Bing Video Preview may do; your access logs show what it actually did.

Count requests

On a server with standard Nginx or Apache logs, this counts matching requests per day (adjust the log path for your host):

grep -iE "BingVideoPreview" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
  | awk '{print $4}' | cut -d: -f1 | sort | uniq -c

And this shows which paths it requested most, which is the quickest way to see whether your Disallow lines are being respected:

grep -iE "BingVideoPreview" /var/log/nginx/access.log \
  | awk '{print $7}' | sort | uniq -c | sort -rn | head -20

Check the requests are genuine

Anyone can send the Bing Video Preview user-agent, so confirm the source before acting on a match:

  • BingVideoPreview: we hold no published IP list, so use reverse DNS where the operator documents a hostname and treat an unverifiable Bing Video Preview request with caution.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the official user-agent string for Bing Video Preview?
The official user-agent string for Bing Video Preview is: BingVideoPreview. Use this exact string in robots.txt, Nginx, Apache, or Cloudflare firewall rules to target this bot. Matching in robots.txt is case-insensitive. Verify a request genuinely comes from Bing Video Preview by performing a reverse-DNS lookup on the source IP.
Is Bing Video Preview safe?
Yes, Bing Video Preview is a safe and legitimate crawler operated by Microsoft. It follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (RFC 9309) and can be controlled with standard robots.txt rules.
Will blocking Bing Video Preview hurt my SEO?
🔶 AI Visibility Trade-off - Blocking Bing Video Preview will not hurt Google or Bing rankings, but it can remove your content from AI search answers and assistant citations powered by this crawler. Block only if you have a deliberate reason.
How do I block Bing Video Preview in robots.txt?
Add the following lines to your /robots.txt file:
User-agent: BingVideoPreview
Disallow: /

This instructs Bing Video Preview not to crawl any path on your site. To block only specific sections, replace / with the path (e.g., Disallow: /blog/).
Does Bing Video Preview respect robots.txt?
Bing Video Preview is operated by Microsoft and is expected to fetch and parse /robots.txt before crawling, following RFC 9309. For hard enforcement, combine robots.txt with server-level IP or user-agent blocking.
How do I verify if Bing Video Preview is crawling my site?
Search your web server access logs for the string BingVideoPreview (case-insensitive: grep -i "BingVideoPreview" /var/log/nginx/access.log). Filter by user-agent in your log analytics tool (GoAccess, AWStats, etc.).

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