---
title: "What is msnbot? Microsoft's Bot Explained | Kitbase"
description: "Legacy Microsoft crawler used for search indexing, now largely superseded by Bingbot."
canonical: https://kitbase.dev/bot-directory/msnbot
---

[Home](/) [Bot Directory](/bot-directory) msnbot

# msnbot

by Microsoft

Search engine UA + IP range

Crawls pages for a traditional search index, which is what lets them rank.

Legacy Microsoft crawler used for search indexing, now largely superseded by Bingbot.

## What it usually means

An older Microsoft crawler fetched this page for the Bing index.

## How to identify it

User-Agent tokens

`msnbot`

robots.txt stanza

`User-agent: msnbot`

Free tools

[Verify a msnbot request](/tools/bot-verifier?ua=msnbot) [Check if your site allows msnbot](/tools/ai-crawler-access-checker)

## How it's verified

Published IP-range endpoints

-   [https://www.bing.com/toolbox/bingbot.json](https://www.bing.com/toolbox/bingbot.json)

Currently loaded ranges (sample) Refreshed Sep 4, 2026

`157.55.39.0/24``207.46.13.0/24``40.77.167.0/24``13.66.139.0/24``13.66.144.0/24``52.167.144.0/24``13.67.10.16/28``13.69.66.240/28``13.71.172.224/28``139.217.52.0/28`

1 IP source configured

Reverse DNS suffixes

`.search.msn.com`

[Microsoft's page for msnbot](https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/how-to-verify-bingbot-3905dc26)

## Sources

-   [Microsoft crawler docs](https://www.bing.com/webmasters/help/how-to-verify-bingbot-3905dc26)
-   [Published IP ranges](https://www.bing.com/toolbox/bingbot.json)

## More from Microsoft

[

Bingbot

Microsoft crawler for Bing Search indexing.

](/bot-directory/bingbot)[

Copilot

User-triggered Microsoft Copilot fetches for AI answers.

](/bot-directory/copilot)

## Similar bots

[

Amazonbot

Amazon

Amazon crawler used to improve Alexa answers and Amazon products.

](/bot-directory/amazonbot)[

Amzn-SearchBot

Amazon

Amazon crawler that makes content eligible for Amazon search experiences.

](/bot-directory/amzn-searchbot)[

Applebot

Apple

Apple crawler for Siri and Spotlight Suggestions, spanning search and training use.

](/bot-directory/applebot)[

Baiduspider

Baidu

Baidu's crawler for its search index.

](/bot-directory/baiduspider)

## See if msnbot has visited your site

Kitbase verifies and tracks bot and AI crawler traffic separately from human visitors, so you know exactly who's hitting your site.

[Start Free Trial](https://app.kitbase.dev/signup)