# BingPreview: Bing Page Snapshot Crawler and User Agent

> BingPreview makes page snapshots for Bing. Its current user agent carries the bingbot token. How to verify it and limit previews with meta tags.

BingPreview is a Microsoft crawler that generates page snapshots for Bing. In Bing's current crawler list, its user agent strings carry the `bingbot/2.0` token, the same token as Bingbot. Bing does not document a separate robots.txt token for BingPreview. To limit the description and preview thumbnail that Bing shows for a page, use robots meta tags.

## User agent strings

Bing lists BingPreview in [Overview of Bing crawlers](https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/which-crawlers-does-bing-use-8c184ec0). BingPreview has a desktop and a mobile variant:

```
Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; bingbot/2.0; +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Safari/537.36
```

```
Mozilla/5.0 (Linux; Android 6.0.1; Nexus 5X Build/MMB29P) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/W.X.Y.Z Mobile Safari/537.36 (compatible; bingbot/2.0; +http://www.bing.com/bingbot.htm)
```

`W.X.Y.Z` stands for the Microsoft Edge version that Bing uses to render pages. These strings are the same as two of the [Bingbot](/ai-crawler-bot/bingbot/) strings. In your logs, you cannot tell BingPreview from Bingbot by the user agent alone.

Older strings with the token `BingPreview/1.0b` still appear in bot lists, for example in [Cloudflare Radar](https://radar.cloudflare.com/bots/directory/bingpreview). Bing's current list does not show this token.

## Verify the requests

For all its crawlers, Bing points to the Bingbot verification methods. Use the [Verify Bingbot](https://www.bing.com/toolbox/verify-bingbot) tool, or follow the steps in [How to verify Bingbot](https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/how-to-verify-bingbot-3905dc26):

1. Do a reverse DNS lookup on the IP address. The host name must end in `search.msn.com`.
2. Do a forward DNS lookup on that host name. Make sure that it returns the same IP address.

## Block or limit BingPreview

Bing does not say which robots.txt group BingPreview reads. A `User-agent: BingPreview` group has no documented effect. A `User-agent: Bingbot` group with `Disallow` also keeps your pages out of Bing search.

If you want to limit the description or the preview, use the robots meta tags from [Robots meta tags and attributes that Bing supports](https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/robots-meta-tags-and-attributes-that-bing-supports-5198d240):

| Tag | Effect |
|---|---|
| `nosnippet` | No description and no preview thumbnail for the page. |
| `max-image-preview:none` | No image preview. |
| `max-snippet:0` | No text snippet. |
| `data-nosnippet` attribute on an element | No description or thumbnail from that part of the page. |

To apply a tag to Bing only, use `name="bingbot"`:

```html

```

## Related Microsoft crawlers

| Crawler | What it does |
|---|---|
| MicrosoftPreview | Generates page snapshots for Microsoft products. Its strings contain `MicrosoftPreview/2.0`. |
| BingVideoPreview | Makes video previews in Bing. Its strings contain `BingVideoPreview/1.0`. |
| [AdIdxBot](/ai-crawler-bot/adidxbot/) | Crawls ads in Bing Ads and the sites that the ads link to. |

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