Bing wants to help you better manage your visibility with the data-nosnippet attribute

It’s official: Bing now supports the data-nosnippet attribute! With this support, Microsoft’s search engine now allows webmasters to finely control which sections of their pages may or may not appear in search result snippets and in responses generated by Bing Copilot’s AI.

Giving publishers and SEOs more control

The data-nosnippet attribute is a direct response to creators’ concerns shaken by the new issues related to generative AI. Bing says it wants to reconcile two objectives: protecting sensitive or paid content, but also preserve their visibility and ranking potential in search results.

This attribute can be applied to any HTML element parts of a page (paragraph, div, table, image, etc.). The marked content remains indexed and taken into account by the algorithm, but Bing commits to not displaying it in search result snippets or in AI summaries.

In other words, your page can continue to rank for the targeted keyword, but the protected passages will not appear in Copilot responses or in snippets.

What does data-nosnippet actually do?

This attribute is aimed at a wide range of uses:

• Protect premium or paid content: For example, hide sections reserved for subscribers while keeping the page discoverable and eligible for ranking.
• Maintain brand consistency: Exclude comments, reviews, or user remarks that could damage brand image.
• Clean up snippets: Hide legal notices, disclaimers, or footnotes, which are often of little value to the user.
• Avoid stale data: Prevent old promotions or obsolete content from appearing in a search snippet.
• Stabilize tests: Prevent A/B variants or editorial experiments from muddying snippet results during a testing phase.

Thus, data-nosnippet is intended to manage the information shared by Bing, while avoiding harming the site's overall SEO.

HTML implementation example

Here is a simple example to understand its use:

<h2>Overview</h2>

<p>Cette section peut apparaître dans Bing Search et les réponses de Copilot</p>

<div data-nosnippet>
  <h3>Subscriber Content</h3>
  <p>Cette section n'apparaît pas dans Bing Search et les réponses de Copilot</p>
</div>

This code tells Bing to ignore the block marked by data-nosnippet when generating a preview, while continuing to index it.

How to verify your implementation

After implementation, checks are performed via Bing Webmaster Tools. The URL inspection tool notably allows you to verify the most recent date of crawl and to confirm that the content has been taken into account. Processing time can vary from a few seconds to several days depending on the frequency of Bingbot's visits.

Comparison with other Bing directives

The data-nosnippet attribute does not replace other meta tags or HTTP headers, but complements them. Here is how it interacts with existing directives:

data-nosnippet stands out by offering a new approach: it does not operate at the level of the entire page, but at the level of a specific element, which enables highly targeted content management.

Towards a fairer web for creators?

By introducing data-nosnippet, Bing reinforces a trend that was already underway: give publishers more transparency and choice in the way their content is used and showcased within AI-driven environments.

This development illustrates a clear intent: to reconcile an open web and respect for creators' rights, by offering concrete tools to adjust visibility without sacrificing the reach of content.

The article “Bing wants to help you better manage your visibility with the data-nosnippet attribute” was published on the site Abondance.