Does Bing (and Copilot) Matter in Malaysia?
Updated 7 September 2026
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Mostly no, with one real exception. Bing holds about 4.7% of Malaysian search against Google's 92% (StatCounter, July 2026), so few buyers reach you through it directly. The exception is Microsoft Copilot: Bing's index grounds Copilot's cited answers, so a page Bing knows can surface inside that assistant. One myth to drop: Bing no longer feeds ChatGPT search, which runs on OpenAI's own crawler.
How much search does Bing get in Malaysia?
Bing takes roughly 4.7% of Malaysian searches, and Google takes about 92%. StatCounter's July 2026 figures put Google at 92.47% and Bing at 4.68%, with Yahoo, Yandex, and DuckDuckGo dividing most of what is left. For a Malaysian SME, that means about one searcher in twenty reaches you through Bing directly.
| Search engine | Malaysia share, July 2026 |
|---|---|
| 92.47% | |
| Bing | 4.68% |
| Yahoo! | 1.82% |
| Yandex | 0.58% |
| DuckDuckGo | 0.30% |
Source: StatCounter Global Stats, search engine market share, Malaysia, July 2026.
On that number alone, Bing is not worth a dedicated strategy here. The reason to care is what now sits on top of Bing's index.
Why does Bing still matter? It feeds Microsoft Copilot.
Bing matters because it grounds Microsoft Copilot, the AI assistant Microsoft builds into Windows 11 and the Edge browser. When Copilot answers using the live web, Microsoft's documentation says it "may fetch information from the Bing search service" and shows the sources it drew on.
A page Bing has indexed can appear inside a Copilot answer, even when almost nobody in Malaysia runs a plain Bing search.
That is the practical shift. Bing is no longer only a small search box; it is the retrieval layer behind an assistant sitting on millions of Windows machines. The same crawl and index power both Bing results and Copilot's grounded citations.
Copilot joins Google AI Mode, Perplexity, and ChatGPT as AI surfaces that answer with cited web pages. Being readable to each of them is the point of answer engine optimization.
Does appearing in Bing get you into ChatGPT?
No, and this is the assumption worth correcting. Older versions of ChatGPT browsing leaned on Bing, but OpenAI now runs its own search crawler, OAI-SearchBot (OpenAI's search bot). OpenAI's documentation says sites opted out of OAI-SearchBot "will not be shown in ChatGPT search answers", and recommends allowing it in robots.txt.
Being indexed by Bing does nothing for that. Getting mentioned by ChatGPT is a separate job, governed by a different crawler. Treat Bing-and-Copilot and ChatGPT as two tasks, not one.
How should a Malaysian business handle Bing?
Treat Bing as a low-effort add-on, never a separate strategy. The answer-first pages that rank on Google are the same pages Bing and Copilot want, so most of the work is already done.
You can also help Bing directly. Verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools, keep bingbot allowed in your robots.txt, and use IndexNow, the free protocol that tells Bing the moment a URL changes.
The first thing we check for a site chasing AI mentions is whether its own robots.txt is quietly blocking the crawlers it needs. The same check protects your place in Copilot: block bingbot and you remove yourself from both Bing and its AI answers. Deciding which crawlers to allow is a real choice, and blocking the wrong one is easy to do by accident.
None of this pulls effort away from SEO in Malaysia. It extends one body of work to a second engine and, through Copilot, to an AI surface.
Frequently asked questions
Is Bing worth optimizing for in Malaysia?
Not on its own, but yes as a by-product. Bing's roughly 4.7% share is too small to build a plan around, yet the pages that rank on Google already suit Bing. Verifying your site in Bing Webmaster Tools and enabling IndexNow costs about an hour and opens a second engine plus Microsoft Copilot. Spend your real effort on Google, and let Bing come along.
Does Bing power ChatGPT search?
No, not anymore. ChatGPT search now uses OpenAI's own crawler, OAI-SearchBot, not Bing's index. Earlier ChatGPT browsing did rely on Bing, which is where the myth comes from. Today, appearing in Bing and appearing in ChatGPT are controlled separately, so treat them as two different tasks.
What is Microsoft Copilot?
Microsoft Copilot is Microsoft's AI assistant, built into Windows 11 and the Edge browser and available at copilot.microsoft.com. When it answers with current information, it grounds those answers in Bing's web index and cites the pages it used. That link is why Bing visibility now feeds an AI assistant, not just a results page.
How do I get my website into Bing?
Submit and verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools, then keep bingbot allowed in robots.txt so it can crawl you. IndexNow, a free protocol Bing supports, lets you ping the engine the instant a page changes so it re-indexes faster. Beyond that, the ordinary answer-first work that suits Google suits Bing too.
Will focusing on Bing hurt my Google ranking?
No. Bing and Google read the same clean, fast, answer-first pages, so improving for one tends to help the other. The risk runs the other way: chasing Bing-specific tricks wastes time you could spend on the engine 92% of Malaysians actually use. Build for Google first, and Bing follows at almost no extra cost.
Being found when Malaysians ask any engine
Storming Solutions runs SEO, AEO, and GEO for Malaysian businesses from Kuala Lumpur. We build pages that answer clearly and stay open to every crawler that matters, from Googlebot to bingbot to the AI search bots. That openness is what decides whether an engine quotes you or a competitor.
We will not sell you a Bing-only package, because the honest move is to earn Google first and let Bing and Copilot come nearly free. Want to know how your pages read to Bing, Copilot, and Google today? Ask us through our SEO, AEO and GEO service, or message us on WhatsApp.