The Problem
I had been managing 45 niche sites for years — all optimised for Google, all tracked through Google Search Console. Standard practice.
But when I finally pulled Bing Webmaster Tools data across the portfolio, the numbers told a completely different story. Sites I assumed were underperforming were actually generating hundreds of daily clicks — just not from Google.
The core issue: single-platform monitoring creates blind spots. And those blind spots were costing real money.
The Audit
Data Sources
- Bing Webmaster Tools — 11 sites, 28-day window (February 2026)
- Google Search Console — 3 sites, 16-month window (October 2024 – February 2026)
- Bing AI Citations — a metric Google doesn't even track yet
The 107x Gap
The most striking finding was on a technology site:
- Bing: 906 clicks in 28 days (32 per day), 3.28% CTR
- Google: 14 clicks in 16 months (0.3 per day), 0.26% CTR
- Gap: 107x more daily traffic from Bing than Google
This wasn't a minor discrepancy. The site was effectively invisible on Google while thriving on Bing — suggesting either a manual action, algorithmic suppression, or severe indexing issue on Google's side.
Platform Dependency Risk
Three of the top-performing sites were over 90% dependent on Bing:
- Site A: 99.1% Bing traffic
- Site B: 95.3% Bing traffic
- Site C: 91.0% Bing traffic
A single Bing algorithm change could collapse traffic overnight. This is the kind of concentration risk that doesn't show up in Google-only reporting.
CTR Emergency
The CTR comparison was equally alarming:
- One site had 127,987 Google impressions but only a 0.27% CTR — meaning massive visibility was being completely wasted
- The same sites achieved 3–26% CTR on Bing
- The difference pointed to poor title tag and meta description optimisation for Google's SERP format specifically
Revenue Mapping
By mapping the performance gap to revenue:
- Fixing Google rankings on three sites would recover £810 per year immediately
- Adding proper monetisation to the Bing-dominant tech site could unlock £450 per month in Amazon Associates revenue alone
- The full portfolio optimisation opportunity exceeded £100K per year if both platforms were fully leveraged
Key Findings
1. AI Citations Are the Hidden Metric
Bing Webmaster Tools reports AI Copilot citations — the number of times your content is referenced in AI-generated answers. Across the portfolio:
- 120,409 total AI citations
- 57:1 ratio of AI citations to organic clicks
- One single page generated 31,377 AI citations alone
As AI-powered search grows from its current 2–3% adoption to a projected 20%, this metric represents an 11x traffic multiplier waiting to activate.
2. Content Format Determines Platform Performance
The audit revealed clear platform preferences:
Bing AI rewards:
- Technical troubleshooting guides with step-by-step answers
- Research-backed content citing studies and data
- Comprehensive product education with specifications
Google organic rewards:
- Health Q&A content answering specific user questions
- Direct product reviews with comparison elements
- User-intent focused content (not academic-style articles)
3. Single-Platform Monitoring Is a Strategic Liability
The audit proved that Google-only SEO monitoring misses:
- Bing traffic that may exceed Google traffic (as it did on 3 of 11 sites)
- AI citation volume — an entirely new discovery channel
- Platform-specific ranking discrepancies that signal technical issues
- Revenue leakage from unmonetised Bing traffic
Actions Taken
- Immediate: Investigated Google penalty/suppression on the 107x gap site
- Week 1: Emergency title and meta description rewrite on the 0.27% CTR site
- Week 2: Submitted 12 missing top earners to Bing Webmaster Tools
- Ongoing: Cross-platform reporting now standard across all 45 sites
The Takeaway
If you're only looking at Google, you're only seeing half your SEO performance. Cross-platform auditing isn't optional — it's where the revenue gaps hide.