Bing Webmaster Tools now labels page problems as “SEO/GEO issues.” Here is what the report shows, what we found on our own pages, and how much of it deserves your time.
- What the SEO/GEO issues report is
- The two flags we actually saw
- Case study: the duplicate H1 we fixed
- The alt attribute notice, and why we left it
- Does it matter for rankings or AI answers?
- Check your own pages in 60 seconds
- How to fix it on WordPress, Shopify and page builders
- Common myths, sorted from fact
- The working checklist
- Frequently asked questions
- Sources
The Short Answer
The Bing SEO/GEO issues report is a new panel inside Bing Webmaster Tools’ URL Inspection tool that lists on-page problems for a single URL, each tagged as a Notice or an Error. On our own pages it flagged a duplicate H1 (Error) and missing image alt attributes (Notice). Fixing the H1 took minutes. Bing has not published a full list of what the report checks, so treat it as a useful checklist rather than a ranking verdict.
If you opened URL Inspection recently and noticed a red “SEO/GEO issues found” banner that was not there before, you are not imagining it. In short, Bing has started grading individual pages on basic structure, and it is doing so under a label that includes “GEO,” or generative engine optimization.
We searched for coverage of this panel and found none. Consequently, everything below comes from two sources: what Bing has published about its tools, and what the report actually told us when we ran it on leafworldmedia.com.
1. What the SEO/GEO Issues Report Is
The report lives inside URL Inspection, the tool Bing introduced in 2020 for checking how it sees a specific page. You paste a URL, Bing runs its checks, and the results page now shows several stacked panels instead of just an indexing verdict.
| Panel | What it tells you | What we saw on our page |
|---|---|---|
| Indexability | Whether Bing can index the URL | “URL can be indexed by Bing” |
| SEO/GEO issues | On-page problems, each with a severity and an instance count | “2 SEO/GEO issues found” |
| Markup types found | The structured data formats Bing detected on the page | “2 Markup types found” |
| View Tested page | A button to see the page as Bing tested it | Available |
Each issue row shows a severity, a plain-language message, and a count such as “2 instances found.” Bing also adds “Click on issues to analyze,” so each row expands to show where the problem sits.
The sidebar now includes an “AI Performance” entry marked Beta. That is a separate report, and it is easy to confuse the two. AI Performance, announced in February 2026, shows how often your content is cited in answers from Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing, and select partner integrations. The SEO/GEO issues panel, by contrast, is about the page itself.
2. The Two Flags We Actually Saw
We ran URL Inspection on a recent LeafWorldMedia article. Two issues came back, and they are the only ones we can speak to firsthand.
| Severity | Message | Count | Real cause on our page |
|---|---|---|---|
| Error | More than one h1 tag | 2 | The theme printed the post title as an H1, and our article body added a second H1 |
| Notice | Alt attribute for images is missing | 6 | Theme thumbnails, an avatar and one old image, not the article’s own content |
Bing has not published a complete catalog of the checks behind this report that we could find. The list above is what we observed, not the full list. Other pages, such as those with missing meta descriptions or thin titles, may trigger flags we have not seen.
3. Case Study: The Duplicate H1 We Fixed
Here is how the Error happened, because it is probably how it will happen to you. Our theme automatically prints each post’s title at the top of the page as an H1. Meanwhile, our article template began with its own title, also written as an H1, so every visitor and every crawler saw two top-level headings.
Nothing about this is obvious from a design standpoint. Heading tags are invisible plumbing, and styling can make any element look like a title. Only the HTML, or a tool that reads it, shows how many top-level headings a page really has.
The fix was small. We replaced the H1 in the article body with a styled div that uses the same font, size and color. After that, we re-ran the inspection. The Error disappeared, and the banner dropped from “2 SEO/GEO issues found” to “1 SEO/GEO issue found.”
As a result, the page now has one H1, the one the theme prints. The visual design did not change at all.
4. The Alt Attribute Notice, and Why We Left It
The remaining flag was a Notice: “Alt attribute for images is missing,” with 6 instances. Our first assumption was that the article had unlabeled images. In fact, it did not. The article’s illustrations are inline SVG graphics with their own accessible labels.
Instead, the six instances came from the surrounding theme. Specifically, they were thumbnails in a “Latest Posts” block, a profile avatar, and one older image uploaded in 2024.
We decided to leave it. Notices are the lowest severity in the report, none of these images carries meaning a visitor needs described, and the article itself was clean. That said, if you run an image-heavy site, such as a store with hundreds of product photos, missing alt text is worth fixing in bulk, because there it describes your products.
5. Does It Matter for Rankings or AI Answers?
This is the honest section. Bing labeled the report “SEO/GEO,” but it has not said that fixing these items will improve rankings or AI citations. We can separate what is documented from what is only plausible.
| Claim | Status |
|---|---|
| The panel exists and lists issues by severity | Observed directly |
| Bing’s AI Performance report shows citations in Copilot, Bing AI summaries and partner integrations | Documented by Bing |
| AI systems cluster near-duplicate pages and may pick the wrong one | Documented by Bing (December 2025) |
| One H1 per page improves Bing rankings | Not stated by Bing |
| Fixing these flags increases AI citations | Not stated by Bing, no evidence found |
| A clear heading outline helps machines parse a page | Plausible, unproven |
Two outside data points are worth keeping in mind. First, Bing’s own announcement says AI Performance data is aggregated and “does not indicate ranking, authority, or the role of any page within an individual answer.” Second, CXL reported that its ten most-cited pages in Bing’s AI report also ranked at about position five in organic search, suggesting that AI citations track ordinary SEO strength.
For H1 specifically, Google has said for years that multiple H1s are not a problem for its systems. Bing classifies the same thing as an Error. Because the fix is cheap and the single-H1 convention is universally understood by tools, assistive technology and crawlers, we fixed it. However, we would not rebuild a site over it.
6. Check Your Own Pages in 60 Seconds
You do not need Bing to find these two issues. Open any page, press F12 to open the browser console, and paste the following lines one at a time.
// How many H1 tags are on the page? You want 1.
document.querySelectorAll('h1').length
// Which ones? Shows the text of each H1.
[...document.querySelectorAll('h1')].map(h => h.textContent.trim())
// Images with no alt attribute at all.
[...document.images].filter(i => !i.hasAttribute('alt')).map(i => i.currentSrc || i.src)If the first line returns 2 or more, the second line tells you which element is the extra one. Typically it is either the theme’s title or a title you typed into the page body.
One caution on alt text: an image with an empty alt="" is the correct markup for purely decorative images. We have not confirmed whether Bing counts an empty alt as present or missing, so check the specific instances Bing lists before assuming a problem.
7. How to Fix It on WordPress, Shopify and Page Builders
The cause of a duplicate H1 depends on who is printing the title. In most cases, you are looking for the second source and removing its heading tag, not its text.
| Platform | Common source of the extra H1 | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| WordPress | Theme prints the post title, and the content starts with another H1 | Change the content’s title to a styled div or a paragraph. Keep the theme’s H1. |
| Page builders (Thrive, Elementor) | A Heading element set to H1 on a page whose theme also prints a title | Set the builder’s heading tag to H2, or hide the theme’s title and keep the builder’s. |
| Shopify products | Theme prints the product title as H1, and a pasted supplier description contains its own H1 | Edit the description in HTML view and change any H1 to H2 or remove it. |
| Shopify collections and pages | Collection or page description contains an H1 | Same approach: demote it to H2. |
The Shopify row deserves special attention. Supplier feeds and pasted product copy often arrive with their own heading tags, and a bulk import can multiply the problem across hundreds of products at once. We covered how imported catalogs hide problems like this in What Shopify Onboarding Leaves Out.
After any change, clear your caching layer, then re-inspect the URL in Bing Webmaster Tools. The result reflects the live page, so a cached old version can make a fixed page look broken.
Common Myths, Sorted From Fact
A red SEO/GEO banner means Bing is penalizing the page.
FactThe same results page says the URL can be indexed. The banner lists on-page issues for you to review. Bing has not described these flags as penalties or ranking demotions.
“GEO” in the label means Bing will cite you more if you clear every flag.
FactThe label tells you Bing is thinking about AI-era visibility. It does not promise a result. Citation data lives in the separate AI Performance report, which is where you measure whether anything changed.
If my page looks right in the browser, the heading structure is right.
FactStyling hides structure. Any element can be made to look like a title, so the number of H1 tags can’t be judged by eye. Only the source, the console or a tool like this one reveals it.
8. The Working Checklist
- ✓ Run URL Inspection on your homepage, your top three landing pages and your newest post
- ✓ Fix every Error first, starting with duplicate H1 tags, since those are usually quick
- ✓ Use the console line above to confirm each page ends up with exactly one H1
- ✓ Expand each Notice with “Click on issues to analyze” and decide whether the images in question matter
- ✓ Add alt text in bulk where images carry meaning, such as product photos and diagrams
- ✓ Check the Markup types panel to confirm your schema is detected
- ✓ Open the AI Performance (Beta) report and note which pages are being cited, so you have a baseline
- ✓ Re-inspect after clearing your cache to confirm the fix is live
None of this takes more than an afternoon for a typical site. Ultimately, the report is most useful as a prompt to look at pages you have not examined closely since you published them.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the Bing SEO/GEO issues report?
It is a panel in Bing Webmaster Tools’ URL Inspection results that lists on-page problems for a single URL. Each issue has a severity such as Notice or Error, a short message and an instance count. The “GEO” in the name refers to generative engine optimization, meaning visibility in AI-generated answers.
Where do I find it?
Sign in to Bing Webmaster Tools, select your verified site, open URL Inspection from the sidebar, and enter a full URL from that site. The SEO/GEO issues panel appears below the indexability verdict.
Why does Bing say I have more than one H1 tag?
Usually two things are printing a top-level heading. Most often the theme outputs the page title as an H1 while your content also begins with an H1. Remove the heading tag from one of them, keeping the visual styling if you want the same look.
Will fixing these issues improve my rankings?
Bing has not said so. The fixes are low-cost hygiene that make a page easier for tools and assistive technology to read, but we found no evidence that clearing these flags changes rankings. Treat any such claim from a vendor with caution.
Will fixing them get me cited by Copilot or other AI tools?
There is no published evidence that it will. Bing’s AI Performance report measures citations separately, and early analysis from CXL found that frequently cited pages also tended to rank well in organic search. Strong fundamentals appear to matter more than any single flag.
Is a missing alt attribute a serious problem?
In Bing’s report it is a Notice, the lowest severity we saw. It matters most for images that carry information, such as product photos, charts and diagrams, where alt text serves both accessibility and search. For decorative images, an empty alt attribute is the standard approach.
What does “Markup types found” mean?
It reports the structured data formats Bing detected on the page. On our test page it found two. It is worth checking after you add schema, as a quick confirmation that Bing can see it.
How is this different from the AI Performance report?
URL Inspection’s SEO/GEO panel evaluates one page’s markup and structure. AI Performance, currently in public preview, reports how often your site’s pages are cited as sources in Microsoft Copilot, Bing’s AI summaries and select partner experiences, along with the query phrases involved.
Should I fix every issue on every page?
No. Start with Errors on pages that matter, such as your homepage, top landing pages and best-selling products. Notices on low-value pages can wait. A bulk problem, like a theme that duplicates H1 tags, is the exception, since one template change fixes hundreds of pages.
The Honest Summary
In the end, the SEO/GEO issues report is a small, useful addition to a tool you may already have open. It found a real structural flaw on our page, the fix was quick, and nothing about our design changed.
However, it is not a ranking oracle, and Bing has not claimed otherwise. Run it on your key pages, fix the Errors, skim the Notices, and then spend your remaining effort on content worth citing.
Sources
- Microsoft Bing Webmaster Blog, Introducing AI Performance in Bing Webmaster Tools Public Preview (February 2026)
- Microsoft Bing Webmaster Blog, Does Duplicate Content Hurt SEO and AI Search Visibility? (December 2025)
- Microsoft Bing Webmaster Blog, Introducing the Bing Webmaster Tools URL Inspection Tool (September 2020)
- CXL, How to track your AI visibility with Bing
- LeafWorldMedia’s own URL Inspection results for leafworldmedia.com, October 3, 2026
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