A website owner may notice a confusing situation after submitting an XML sitemap to Microsoft Bing Webmaster Tools: website page views start increasing, but Google AdSense earnings suddenly decrease.

For example:

• Before submitting the sitemap, the website receives 1,000 page views per day and earns ₹150.
• After submitting the sitemap to Bing, page views increase to 1,500 or 2,000 per day.
• Surprisingly, AdSense earnings fall to ₹70–₹80 per day.

This can naturally create a suspicion that submitting the sitemap to Bing caused the Google AdSense revenue loss.

However, submitting a sitemap to Bing does not directly tell Google AdSense to reduce earnings. Bing and Google AdSense operate independently.

Microsoft recommends XML sitemaps as a mechanism for helping Bing discover and index relevant URLs. Bing says that after a sitemap is submitted through Bing Webmaster Tools, it attempts to fetch the sitemap and subsequently revisits it regularly.

Therefore, the correct question is not simply:

"Did Bing reduce my AdSense earnings?"

The better technical question is:

"What changed in my traffic, ad impressions, RPM, CTR, CPC, coverage or traffic quality at approximately the same time?"

This article explains how to investigate that situation properly.

1. Does Submitting a Sitemap to Bing Reduce Google AdSense Earnings?

Normally, no.

An XML sitemap is essentially a structured list of URLs that tells search engines about pages available on a website.

Submitting a sitemap can help Bing:

• discover website URLs;
• identify pages that may need crawling;
• understand the structure of a large website;
• discover newly added pages;
• revisit updated content;
• improve indexing coverage.

Microsoft states that XML remains its preferred sitemap format and recommends sitemap submission through Bing Webmaster Tools or referencing the sitemap through robots.txt.

The sitemap itself does not control:

• Google AdSense CPC;
• Google AdSense RPM;
• advertisers' bids;
• AdSense CTR;
• Google Search ranking;
• AdSense earnings;
• AdSense ad inventory.

Therefore:

Bing sitemap submission ≠ AdSense revenue reduction

Nevertheless, the events following sitemap submission can change website traffic patterns, which makes investigation worthwhile.

2. Why Can Page Views Increase While AdSense Income Decreases?

This is entirely possible because:

More page views do not automatically mean more revenue.

AdSense revenue depends on many variables, including:

• traffic source;
• visitor country;
• advertiser demand;
• page RPM;
• impression RPM;
• ad impressions;
• CTR;
• CPC;
• ad coverage;
• visitor engagement;
• device type;
• content category;
• ad placement;
• traffic quality;
• invalid traffic filtering;
• serving restrictions.

Consider this simplified example.

Before

Page views: 2,000

Estimated earnings: ₹400

Page RPM: ₹200

After

Page views: 4,000

Estimated earnings: ₹200

Page RPM: ₹50

Traffic has doubled, but earnings have fallen by 50%.

The critical change is not the page-view count.

It is the fall in Page RPM.

3. What Is AdSense Page RPM?

Page RPM is one of the most important measurements when investigating this problem.

Conceptually:

Page RPM = Estimated earnings ÷ Page views × 1,000

It represents approximately how much revenue is being generated for every 1,000 page views.

Suppose:

Estimated earnings = ₹500

Page views = 5,000

Then:

Page RPM = ₹100

Now suppose traffic increases to 10,000 page views, but earnings remain ₹500.

Page RPM becomes:

₹50

Therefore, traffic doubled but the economic value of each thousand page views effectively halved.

This explains why simply watching a website's visitor counter can be misleading.

4. Bing May Start Crawling More Pages After Sitemap Submission

This is an especially important consideration for websites containing hundreds or thousands of articles.

When a sitemap containing many URLs is submitted, Bing obtains a structured source from which it can discover website content.

Microsoft explains that Bingbot crawls URLs to maintain its search index, including discovering new URLs and checking previously known URLs for changes. Sitemaps are among the mechanisms used for discovering URLs.

Bing also says it attempts to fetch a sitemap after submission and revisits submitted sitemaps regularly.

Consequently, your server may receive additional requests from:

Bingbot

But this introduces an important distinction.

Website request does not necessarily equal human visitor.

A crawler requesting:

view_article.php?id=123

may cause a poorly designed PHP view counter to increase from:

1,250 views

to:

1,251 views

even though no human actually read the article.

5. Your Website View Counter May Be Counting Bots

This is particularly important for custom PHP knowledgebase websites.

A simple article counter might contain logic similar to:

UPDATE articles SET views = views + 1

every time an article page loads.

Unless the application filters crawlers, the counter can potentially include requests from:

• Bingbot;
• Googlebot;
• SEO crawlers;
• monitoring services;
• link scanners;
• AI crawlers;
• malicious bots;
• automated scanners;
• other search engine robots.

Therefore, you could see:

Website views: +40%

while actual human traffic increases only:

+5%

or perhaps does not increase at all.

AdSense does not simply treat every HTTP request to your server as a legitimate monetizable human page view.

Google maintains systems designed to detect and filter invalid traffic, including automated robots and irregular traffic patterns.

This is why your own website's article-view counter should not be used as the sole measurement of AdSense traffic.

6. Bingbot Traffic and Bing Human Traffic Are Different

These should never be confused.

Bingbot

Bingbot is Microsoft's search-engine crawler.

Its purpose is to discover and process pages for Bing's search systems.

Bing Organic Visitor

This is an actual person who:

1. searches something on Bing;
2. sees your page in search results;
3. clicks your result;
4. visits your website.

The second type of traffic is what publishers generally want.

Therefore:

Bingbot request ≠ Bing organic visitor

Submitting a sitemap may increase crawling before it produces significant human search traffic.

7. Check Whether Bing Is Actually Sending Visitors

Do not rely only on your knowledgebase's article view counter.

Use analytics data.

In Google Analytics 4, investigate your traffic acquisition data and compare traffic sources such as:

google / organic

and:

bing / organic

Check metrics such as:

• users;
• sessions;
• engaged sessions;
• engagement rate;
• views per session;
• average engagement time;
• landing pages.

Suppose your knowledgebase counter shows:

10,000 additional views

but GA4 reports only:

300 additional Bing organic sessions

That is strong evidence that much of the apparent increase may not represent genuine Bing users.

8. AdSense Now Provides Traffic Source Breakdown

Google AdSense provides a traffic source breakdown that can help publishers understand where page traffic originated.

Google currently lists traffic-source categories including:

• Direct;
• Bing;
• Facebook;
• Google;
• Instagram;
• Yahoo;
• YouTube;
• Other;
• Unknown.

Google notes that this reporting breakdown is available for reports starting from July 21, 2025 and is fully compatible with AdSense for Content traffic.

This makes it especially useful for diagnosing a situation where revenue changes after Bing begins sending traffic.

Compare:

Google traffic

versus:

Bing traffic

versus:

Direct traffic

versus:

Other/Unknown traffic

9. Check Whether Page RPM Has Dropped

Create an AdSense report covering approximately:

7–14 days before the change

and compare it with:

7–14 days after the change.

Do not compare only earnings.

Compare:

Metric	Before	After
Page views
Estimated earnings
Page RPM
Impressions
Impression RPM
Clicks
CTR
CPC
Coverage

The pattern of changes usually reveals much more than earnings alone.

10. Scenario: Page RPM Has Fallen

Suppose:

Before:

Page RPM = ₹180

After:

Page RPM = ₹75

This means the value generated from every 1,000 page views has decreased substantially.

Possible causes include:

• different traffic geography;
• different traffic source;
• lower-value pages receiving more traffic;
• changing advertiser demand;
• lower CPC;
• lower CTR;
• different device mix;
• reduced ad coverage;
• seasonal advertising changes.

In such a case, Bing sitemap submission itself is unlikely to be the underlying cause.

11. Scenario: Ad Impressions Have Fallen

Suppose website page views increased but AdSense impressions decreased.

That indicates that ads are not being displayed at the previous rate.

Investigate:

• AdSense Policy Center;
• ad serving limitations;
• consent settings;
• ad-code problems;
• JavaScript errors;
• ad blockers;
• Auto Ads configuration;
• page layout changes;
• crawler problems;
• serving restrictions.

A website can have plenty of traffic while generating fewer monetized ad impressions.

12. Scenario: CTR Has Fallen

CTR means Click-Through Rate.

If users see ads but click them less frequently, revenue can fall even if traffic rises.

This can occur because:

• the new visitors behave differently;
• new pages have different ad positions;
• users are arriving for quick technical answers;
• mobile traffic has increased;
• ad relevance changed;
• visitors leave quickly.

However, publishers should never try to artificially increase CTR.

Google prohibits encouraging users to click advertisements or artificially generating ad interactions.

13. Scenario: CPC Has Fallen

CPC means Cost Per Click.

Not every advertisement pays the same amount.

Advertiser bids can vary considerably depending on:

• country;
• industry;
• keyword;
• audience;
• device;
• advertiser competition;
• season;
• user intent.

Therefore:

100 clicks × ₹10 CPC = ₹1,000

while:

150 clicks × ₹3 CPC = ₹450

Clicks increased by 50%, but earnings dropped significantly.

14. Visitor Geography Can Dramatically Affect Revenue

A major change in traffic geography can affect advertising value.

For example, traffic originating from different markets may attract very different advertiser demand.

Therefore, compare the country distribution before and after the revenue drop.

Do not assume:

1,000 visitors = fixed advertising value

The commercial value of traffic varies.

15. Different Articles Can Have Different Revenue Potential

Imagine your website contains articles about:

• Windows troubleshooting;
• Microsoft 365;
• Google Workspace;
• cybersecurity;
• banking;
• accounting software;
• networking;
• general computer tips.

These topics do not necessarily produce identical advertising competition.

If Bing starts indexing hundreds of older articles and those pages begin receiving traffic, total page views may rise while average RPM falls.

This is not necessarily bad.

Those pages may eventually:

• rank better;
• attract backlinks;
• generate returning visitors;
• strengthen topical authority;
• produce long-term search traffic.

Therefore, evaluate longer-term performance rather than making a decision based on only a few days.

16. Could Invalid Traffic Be Involved?

Possibly, but it should not be assumed merely because Bing traffic increased.

Google defines invalid traffic as clicks or impressions that can artificially inflate advertiser costs or publisher earnings. This includes automated clicking tools, robots and other deceptive or artificial traffic.

Google says it uses automated systems and human reviews to analyze clicks, impressions and other events for potentially invalid activity.

Publishers should therefore monitor unexpected changes in:

• traffic source;
• geography;
• CTR;
• sessions;
• repeated visitors;
• referral sources;
• landing pages;
• suspicious spikes.

17. Can Google Reduce Earnings Because of Invalid Traffic?

Google can filter invalid activity.

Consequently, publishers may sometimes see differences between estimated and finalized earnings.

Google specifically warns that invalid traffic may lead to:

• filtered activity;
• differences between estimated and finalized earnings;
• limited ad serving;
• account suspension in serious cases;
• account closure in severe or persistent cases.

This does not mean that normal Bing organic traffic is invalid.

Legitimate Bing search users are a normal traffic source.

The concern is artificial, automated or otherwise invalid ad traffic.

18. Check the AdSense Policy Center

If revenue suddenly drops significantly, inspect your AdSense account's Policy Center.

Look for messages concerning:

• ad serving limits;
• invalid traffic concerns;
• policy violations;
• restricted ad serving;
• account assessment.

Google explains that ad serving may sometimes be temporarily limited while traffic quality is assessed or when invalid traffic concerns have been identified.

If there is no warning, do not automatically assume that AdSense has penalized your account.

19. Check Ad Serving Restrictions

AdSense reporting also includes a serving restriction breakdown.

Depending on circumstances, ads may be categorized as:

• Limited ads;
• Restricted Data Processing;
• Non-personalized ads;
• Basic ads;
• Personalization disabled;
• No restriction.

Google explains that these restrictions can affect how advertisements are served and personalized.

Therefore, revenue troubleshooting should include both traffic and ad-serving conditions.

20. Do Not Immediately Remove the Bing Sitemap

If the revenue decline began soon after sitemap submission, removing the sitemap may seem like the obvious solution.

Usually, that is premature.

Sitemaps are standard search-engine optimization infrastructure.

Microsoft recommends sitemap submission to improve discovery and indexing coverage.

Instead of removing it, determine:

1. Did Bingbot crawling increase?
2. Did Bing organic human traffic increase?
3. Did Page RPM fall?
4. Did CPC fall?
5. Did CTR fall?
6. Did ad impressions fall?
7. Did coverage fall?
8. Did visitor geography change?
9. Did low-RPM pages receive more traffic?
10. Is there an AdSense Policy Center warning?

Only after answering these questions can you identify the real cause.

21. How to Compare Performance Properly

A useful comparison is:

Period A

7 days immediately before Bing sitemap submission

versus:

Period B

7 days immediately after submission

For more reliable analysis, also compare:

28 days before

versus:

28 days after

A five-day period can be too short because advertising demand naturally fluctuates.

Weekdays and weekends can also behave differently.

Ideally, compare equivalent days.

For example:

Monday–Sunday

against:

Monday–Sunday

rather than comparing five weekdays against a weekend-heavy period.

22. Check Bing Webmaster Tools

Inside Bing Webmaster Tools, examine:

• sitemap status;
• discovered URLs;
• indexed URLs;
• search impressions;
• search clicks;
• crawl activity;
• search keywords;
• page performance.

Microsoft says sitemap status and last-read information can be reviewed through the Sitemaps section of Bing Webmaster Tools.

The important question is:

Did Bing Search clicks increase, or only crawling activity?

If impressions and clicks are increasing, Bing is starting to deliver genuine search visibility.

23. Check Server Access Logs

For a deeper technical investigation, inspect your web-server access logs.

Search for user agents containing terms such as:

bingbot

and compare the number of requests before and after sitemap submission.

For Apache servers, this information is normally present in access logs if standard logging is enabled.

Server logs can help establish whether the increase in apparent page views corresponds with increased crawler requests.

24. Improve a Custom PHP Article View Counter

If your website has a PHP-based article counter, consider preventing known bots from being counted as human article views.

A better analytics architecture would separately track:

Human Views

and

Bot/Crawler Requests

rather than mixing both into one "Views" figure.

For example:

Article 100:

Human views: 1,250

Crawler requests: 420

Total HTTP requests: 1,670

This gives a much more useful picture of article popularity.

For serious analytics, GA4 and server logs should generally be used alongside the site's own counter.

25. Monitor Traffic Sources Regularly

Google recommends understanding website visitors and segmenting traffic sources when investigating traffic quality.

Publishers should monitor sources such as:

• Google;
• Bing;
• Direct;
• referrals;
• social media;
• other search engines;
• unknown traffic.

Sudden unexplained traffic spikes deserve investigation.

26. Never Buy Cheap Traffic to Recover AdSense Revenue

When earnings decrease, some website owners make the mistake of purchasing inexpensive website traffic.

This can create much bigger problems.

Avoid services promising:

• 100,000 visitors for a few dollars;
• guaranteed AdSense clicks;
• automatic page views;
• traffic exchanges;
• autosurf traffic;
• paid-to-click visitors;
• bots disguised as visitors.

Google specifically warns publishers to monitor traffic providers and traffic quality, and its policies prohibit artificially generated clicks or impressions.

Organic Bing traffic itself is legitimate. Artificial traffic is the concern.

27. Keep Bing SEO and AdSense Analysis Separate

It is useful to think of the website as having two different systems.

Search Engine System

Google Search
Bing Search
Other search engines

Purpose:

Bring visitors to the website.

Advertising System

Google AdSense

Purpose:

Monetize eligible visitor activity.

A change in one system can indirectly affect the other because visitor composition changes, but they are not the same system.

28. Recommended Diagnostic Checklist

If your AdSense revenue falls after Bing sitemap submission, perform the following checks:

1. Record the exact sitemap submission date.
2. Compare 7 days before and 7 days after.
3. Compare 28-day periods if sufficient data is available.
4. Compare AdSense Page Views.
5. Compare Estimated Earnings.
6. Compare Page RPM.
7. Compare Impressions.
8. Compare Impression RPM.
9. Compare CTR.
10. Compare CPC where available.
11. Compare Coverage.
12. Review Traffic Source Breakdown.
13. Compare Google and Bing traffic.
14. Check GA4 Traffic Acquisition.
15. Compare google / organic and bing / organic.
16. Check visitor countries.
17. Check device distribution.
18. Check top landing pages.
19. Check AdSense Policy Center.
20. Check for ad serving limitations.
21. Review Bing Webmaster Search Performance.
22. Check Bing sitemap status.
23. Review server logs for Bingbot activity.
24. Determine whether your website counter includes bots.
25. Avoid making major changes until enough data has been collected.

29. Should You Keep the Sitemap Submitted to Bing?

In most normal circumstances:

Yes.

Submitting a valid sitemap to Bing is a normal SEO practice.

Microsoft recommends XML sitemaps to support comprehensive URL discovery and indexing.

The sitemap can help Bing discover:

• old articles;
• new articles;
• updated articles;
• deeply linked pages;
• pages that Bing previously did not know about.

For a large knowledgebase, this can be beneficial over the long term.

30. Final Conclusion

If website views increase after submitting a sitemap to Bing while Google AdSense income falls, do not immediately conclude that Bing caused the AdSense revenue loss.

The most likely areas to investigate are:

• increased crawler activity being counted as website views;
• genuine Bing traffic with a different monetization profile;
• falling Page RPM;
• falling CPC;
• falling CTR;
• changing visitor geography;
• lower-value articles receiving more traffic;
• reduced ad impressions or coverage;
• ad-serving restrictions;
• normal advertising-market fluctuations;
• invalid or automated traffic filtering.

The most important principle is:

Traffic quantity and traffic value are not the same thing.

A website can receive more requests or even more genuine visitors while earning less if the average advertising value of those visits decreases.

Use AdSense reports + GA4 + Bing Webmaster Tools + server logs together rather than relying only on the article-view counter.

Most importantly, do not remove a valid Bing sitemap simply because AdSense earnings declined shortly after submission. First establish whether the additional activity represents human Bing visitors, search-engine crawling, or another traffic source, and identify exactly which AdSense metric changed.

FAQ

1. Can submitting my website sitemap to Bing reduce Google AdSense earnings?

There is no normal mechanism by which simply submitting an XML sitemap to Bing directly reduces Google AdSense earnings. The sitemap helps Bing discover and crawl URLs. Revenue may change because traffic composition, RPM, advertiser demand or other AdSense metrics changed around the same time.

2. Why did website views increase after submitting the sitemap?

Bing may begin discovering and crawling more URLs after receiving the sitemap. Genuine Bing search traffic may also gradually increase as pages are indexed.

3. Can Bingbot increase my article view counter?

Potentially yes. If your website increments its counter on every page request without filtering bots, Bingbot and other crawlers may be counted.

4. Is Bingbot traffic considered human traffic?

No. Bingbot is a crawler used by Bing to discover and process web content.

5. Does Bingbot generate AdSense income?

Publishers should not regard crawler requests as monetizable human traffic. AdSense has systems for identifying and filtering automated and invalid activity.

6. Is Bing organic traffic safe for AdSense?

Normal genuine users arriving from Bing Search are a legitimate source of website traffic. The concern is artificial, automated or otherwise invalid activity, not the fact that the visitor used Bing.

7. Should I remove my sitemap from Bing?

Usually no. First diagnose the actual cause of the revenue change. Sitemaps are a standard and recommended mechanism for search-engine URL discovery.

8. What is the most important AdSense metric to check?

Page RPM is particularly useful because it shows how earnings relate to every 1,000 page views. Also examine impressions, impression RPM, CTR, CPC and coverage.

9. Why can AdSense earnings decrease even when traffic increases?

The additional traffic may have lower advertiser value, lower CTR, lower CPC, different geography, different content interests or lower monetization performance.

10. Can visitors from different countries produce different AdSense earnings?

Yes. Advertising demand and commercial value can differ significantly between markets.

11. What should I check in Google Analytics?

Compare traffic sources, especially google / organic and bing / organic, together with users, sessions, engagement, landing pages, devices and countries.

12. What should I check in Bing Webmaster Tools?

Check sitemap status, search performance, impressions, clicks, indexed pages and crawling information.

13. How can I identify Bingbot?

Server access logs normally contain the request's user-agent information. Analyze crawler traffic carefully rather than relying only on the website's visible page counter.

14. Can Google filter automated traffic?

Yes. Google states that its invalid-traffic systems analyze clicks, impressions and related activity and can filter automated robots and other irregular traffic.

15. Can invalid traffic cause an ad serving limit?

Yes. Google says ad serving can be limited while traffic quality is being assessed or because of invalid traffic concerns.

16. Where can I check whether AdSense has restricted my account?

Check the AdSense Policy Center for account-level enforcement or policy information.

17. Does a sudden earnings drop always mean an AdSense penalty?

No. Earnings can fluctuate because of RPM, CPC, CTR, advertiser demand, traffic source, geography, content mix and other factors.

18. How many days should I monitor before reaching a conclusion?

Avoid drawing a firm conclusion from only a few days. Compare equivalent 7-day periods and, where possible, 28-day periods to identify a clearer trend.

19. Should I block Bingbot to protect AdSense revenue?

Normally no. Blocking Bingbot can interfere with Bing's ability to crawl and index your website. Investigate whether your analytics or view counter is incorrectly treating crawler requests as human visitors instead.

20. What is the best way to investigate a 50% AdSense revenue drop?

Compare Page RPM, Impression RPM, impressions, CTR, CPC, coverage and traffic sources, then correlate the results with GA4, Bing Webmaster Tools and your server logs.

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