Google Search Console vs Bing Webmaster Tools for B2B websites

Google Search Console is Google's own tool for seeing how your website appears in Google Search: which searches show your pages, how often people click, and which pages Google can't index. It doesn't rank you. It has no SEO score. Since 31 August 2026 it also counts how often your pages appear in AI Overviews and AI Mode.¹

What is Google Search Console used for?

Most B2B teams use it for two jobs. The Performance report shows the searches that put your pages in front of people, with clicks and impressions for each. The indexing reports show which addresses Google has stored, and why it skipped the rest.

You won't find an SEO score anywhere in it. So if an agency report gives your site a mark out of 100, a third-party audit tool produced it by weighting its own checklist. We'd treat those scores as to-do lists and judge progress by numbers that track real searchers: clicks on searches without your brand name, and how many important pages Google has indexed.

Does it help SEO? Not directly. Verifying a site won't move it up the results. What Search Console does is show you problems you'd never otherwise spot, like a sitemap Google can't read or a service page it has quietly decided is a duplicate. Fixing those is what helps.

Bing Webmaster Tools is Microsoft's equivalent, and it's easy to dismiss. Across all UK devices Bing had 6.08% of searches in September 2026, against Google's 91.39%.² Desktop is a different story. There, Bing's UK share was 18.33%.³ A lot of B2B research happens at a desk on a work computer, so for a firm selling to other firms, close to one desktop search in five happening outside Google isn't a rounding error.

How do I open Google Search Console?

1. Go to Google Search Console and sign in with a Google account your team can share, ideally a company account rather than someone's personal Gmail.
2. Add a property. A Domain property covers every version of your site, http and https and all subdomains. A URL-prefix property covers one address only.⁴
3. Verify that you own the site using one of Google's methods.

That last step matters more than people think. A DNS record, a short line of text added at the company you bought your domain from, is the only way to verify a Domain property. Google calls it the more complex option, though it's simple enough if your provider is listed in the setup wizard.⁴ The HTML tag and HTML file methods work for URL-prefix properties only. Verifying through Google Analytics or Tag Manager code is quickest if that code is already on your pages.⁴

We'd pick DNS. It survives website redesigns, which the other methods don't always do. Google itself warns that a site verified through the Analytics tag can fail verification if someone edits a template and the tag disappears, and suggests adding a second method as a backup.⁴ There's a bonus, too: once Search Console is verified, Bing Webmaster Tools can import your sites straight from it and skip its own verification step.⁵

How do Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, GA4 and Scout compare?

All four touch search data, which is why they get muddled. Each one answers a different question, though.

One limit runs through the first and third columns. Search Console keeps 16 months of data, and GA4's Search Console reports inherit the same cap.⁸ The Performance report opens on the last three months by default, and its export stops at 1,000 rows.⁹ If you'll want year-on-year comparisons later, save a monthly export now. Future you will be grateful.

Then there's the unit. Search Console reports by query and page, never by visitor. It can tell you that "ISO 27001 consultancy Leeds" brought clicks last month. It can't tell you that one of them came from a procurement team you've chased for a year.

How do the AI reports in Search Console and Bing differ?

Most teams haven't caught up with this one. Google announced its generative AI performance reports on 3 June 2026 and had rolled them out to every site worldwide by 31 August.¹ Bing got there first: its AI Performance report went into public preview on 10 February 2026.⁷

You can't compare the two numbers. Google counts impressions, meaning the times a link to your site was shown inside an AI Overview or AI Mode answer.¹⁰ Its announcement lists impressions, pages, countries, devices and dates, with no breakdown by query.¹ Bing counts citations, the times your page was shown as a source in an answer from Copilot, Bing's AI summaries or selected partners. It adds grounding queries too. These are the phrases the AI itself used when it went looking for content, shown as a sample rather than a full list.⁷

For a B2B marketer, that makes Bing's report the more revealing one, smaller audience and all. A grounding query shows what the machine was trying to answer when it picked your page. That's closer to the buyer's real question than most keyword lists get.

If the Google report doesn't appear for your property, Google says the usual reason is that the site hasn't had enough impressions in AI features yet, or that it has been excluded from them.¹⁰ And if a page shows plenty of AI impressions but few clicks in the normal report, that's the effect we covered in AI Overviews and anonymous B2B visits: people read the answer, and some arrive later through a route nobody can attribute.

A ten-minute check you can run this week

Open the Performance report, set the date range to 16 months and filter to the United Kingdom. Note the total clicks on the chart. Then export the Queries table and add up its clicks. The gap between the two is search traffic Google won't itemise. Anonymised queries count in the chart totals but never appear as rows, and Google also trims the table to what it treats as the most important rows.⁶

Next, open the generative AI report and sort pages by impressions. Put its top five beside the top five pages by clicks in the normal report. A page that leads on AI impressions but lags on clicks is being read inside the answer. Ignore yesterday's figures, though: the most recent data sits on a dotted line because it's preliminary and can change within hours.¹⁰

Then fix one thing. In the Page indexing report, look for pages you care about marked as not indexed. Say a case study moved in a redesign and its old address now returns "Not found (404)". Redirect the old address to the new one, use URL Inspection on the new page to confirm Google can fetch it, and press Validate fix on the issue. Search Console rechecks the affected addresses and tells you whether the fix held.

Last, import the site into Bing Webmaster Tools and read the grounding queries under AI Performance. Do the phrases there match any heading on the cited page? If not, you've been handed a content brief.

Which one each team needs

Every B2B website should have Search Console verified on a Domain property. Nowhere else does Google tell you which pages it shows, which it won't index and how often you appear in its AI answers.

Bing Webmaster Tools is the one we'd add next. The import takes minutes. And between the desktop share and the Copilot citations, it matters more to business buyers than the headline 6% suggests.

Linking GA4 to Search Console suits teams who already report from GA4 and want landing-page behaviour next to queries. Just know that the query data can't be cut by GA4's own dimensions.⁸ If GA4 itself still needs tidying, our GA4 setup checklist covers the settings that cause trouble later.

None of the three answers the question a sales lead asks on a Monday morning: which companies were looking? Scout connects to your GA4 and Search Console and shows the company behind a visit next to the pages it read and the searches associated with it. Every match carries a 1 to 99 confidence score. Traffic from internet providers, mobile networks and VPNs is flagged and held in the low band rather than dressed up as a lead.

From search queries to the companies behind them

Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools show how search engines and their AI answers treat your site, by query and by page. Scout adds the column they leave empty: which company visited, how confident the match is and what it searched for and read, built on the GA4 and Search Console data you already own. If you'd like to see that against your own site, start a 14-day free trial with no card needed.

Frequently asked questions

How do I open the Google Search Console?

Go to Google Search Console, sign in with a Google account, add your site as a Domain property or a URL-prefix property, then verify ownership. A Domain property covers every version of the site, and the only way to verify it is with a DNS record at your domain provider.

Does Google Search Console give you an SEO score?

No. Search Console has no overall SEO score. It reports clicks, impressions, queries, pages and indexing problems. Scores out of 100 come from third-party audit tools that weight their own checklists, so we'd treat them as to-do lists rather than a measure of search performance.

How to connect Google Search Console to Google Analytics 4?

Link a Search Console property to your GA4 property. GA4's Queries report then shows Search Console queries with their clicks and impressions. It holds 16 months of data at most, and you can break it down by Search Console dimensions but not by Analytics ones.

Is Bing Webmaster Tools worth setting up for a UK B2B website?

Usually, yes. Bing had 18.33% of UK desktop searches in September 2026, and its AI Performance report shows citations in Copilot answers. If your site's already verified in Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools can import it without a separate verification step.

How long does Google Search Console keep data?

Search Console keeps performance data for the last 16 months, and GA4's Search Console reports have the same limit. The report opens on the last three months by default and exports stop at 1,000 rows, so save regular exports if you'll need a longer history.

Sources

1. Google Search Central Blog: Introducing Search Generative AI performance reports in Search Console developers.google.com
2. StatCounter: Search Engine Market Share United Kingdom gs.statcounter.com
3. StatCounter: Desktop Search Engine Market Share United Kingdom gs.statcounter.com
4. Search Console Help: Verify your site ownership support.google.com
5. Bing Webmaster Blog: Easily verify your site in Bing Webmaster Tools by importing from Google Search Console blogs.bing.com
6. Search Console Help: Performance report (Search results): Dimensions and data groupings support.google.com
7. Bing Webmaster Blog: Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview blogs.bing.com
8. Analytics Help: [GA4] Queries report support.google.com
9. Assertive Media: How to get the most out of Google Search Console Performance Report assertive-media.co.uk
10. Search Console Help: Generative AI performance report (Search) support.google.com