How to Use Bing’s Topics Portfolio to Find Content Gaps

Bing Webmaster Tools’ Topics Portfolio is a place to find queries worth investigating—not an automatic content plan. For a small-business website operator, the useful decision is whether a query calls for improving an existing page, answering a genuinely distinct customer question, or taking no action. The report is a beta, its figures are approximate, and an opportunity does not establish customer demand or a reason to publish a new URL.

What Topics Portfolio shows

Microsoft announced Topics Portfolio as a beta within Bing Webmaster Tools’ AI Performance report on October 13, 2026. It groups grounding queries into broader thematic clusters. For each topic, Topic Size is an approximate total of citations across sites during the selected reporting period; Sites Cited and Queries are approximate counts too. An opportunity query is a query within a topic where other sites are cited and your site is not. Its citation volume is shown as a range, not an exact count. These figures describe reported citation activity for the period—not search volume, clicks, rankings, sales or a forecast. See Microsoft’s Topics Portfolio announcement for the beta’s feature details.

Find the report and record its limits

Open your site in Bing Webmaster Tools and go to AI Performance.
Select the Topics tab. Microsoft says the feature appears when a site has sufficient data.
Choose and record the one-, two- or three-month reporting window. Keep that period with your notes so a later comparison has a clear timeframe.
Review the topic clusters and their opportunity queries. If Topics is missing or the report has little data, note that as a limitation of what you can inspect. Microsoft says topics may be omitted when site presence or activity in the broader ecosystem is insufficient; absence alone does not show that your site is restricted or excluded from AI answers.

The beta uses AI-generated topic classification, which Microsoft says can be imperfect. A query may sit under a misleading topic, and branded queries can appear as opportunities. Check the actual wording rather than accepting the label at face value. The interface and availability may change; Microsoft has not specified when the beta will end.

Validate each opportunity against your site and customers

Take one query at a time and work through four checks. First, read the topic label and exact query together: does the query really belong in that cluster? Second, search your own site or review its page inventory for relevant URLs. A page may already answer the question even if the report identifies the query as an opportunity. Third, check business fit: does the query relate to your actual products or services and the people you serve? Finally, ask whether it reflects a real customer question you can answer usefully. The report cannot answer that for you.

Then choose a proportionate action:

Improve an existing page if it already serves the need but gives an incomplete, unclear or hard-to-find answer. Update that page rather than creating a competing URL by default.
Consider new coverage only when the query represents a distinct, useful question that fits the business and is genuinely unanswered by your existing content. The opportunity is a prompt to investigate, not evidence that a new page will be worthwhile.
Take no action when the query is irrelevant, the topic classification is off, or the query is about a competitor’s brand rather than a need your business should address. Do not reshape your site around a query just because it appears in the report.

Hypothetical example: a WooCommerce coffee-grinder store

Suppose the store sees an opportunity query about cleaning a burr grinder. The operator checks the topic and confirms that grinder maintenance fits the store’s products and customer questions. They find that an existing product page already has useful cleaning instructions. The next step is to assess whether those instructions are clear and easy to find—not to assume a separate article is needed. A dedicated guide might make sense only if it would answer a distinct cleaning question that the current page does not. The report does not establish demand for that guide or predict citations from publishing it.

Keep a decision record and verify carefully

For each query you review, save the review date, selected reporting window, topic label, exact query, relevant URLs you checked, and your reason for updating a page, considering new coverage or doing nothing. If you make a change, record the later reporting window too; where practical, compare like-length windows and note other relevant site changes. Bing’s AI Performance guidance says citation activity is not a measure of rankings or traffic, and a trend cannot be attributed to a specific cause or event. A difference after an edit is worth recording, but it does not prove the edit caused it.

Did I record the date I reviewed the report and its reporting window?
Did I check the exact query, its topic label and existing relevant URLs?
Does the query fit the business’s products or services, audience and real customer questions?
Did I document a clear reason for an edit, new coverage or no action?
Will I interpret later citation activity as a limited reporting signal, not proof of traffic, rankings or causation?

If you want help turning this review into a maintainable content and measurement workflow, Splinternet Marketing’s AI search optimization service can help map queries to existing pages, assess content decisions and keep the work under review. Brian Bateman’s managed service draws on 30 years of experience and DOYJO’s process, with technology supporting ongoing data-driven improvements; the app does not replace expert review. The service is $421 per month per business, month to month.

Sources

Editorial note: AI assists with research, drafting and automated checks. Sources are linked so you can verify the guidance. Platform requirements can change; confirm the details that apply to your setup.