"We recommend using search engines other than Bing" — 1.5 million Neocities sites are blocked by Microsoft's search engine, and AI support bots aren't helping

I'm old enough to remember the rise (and fall) of GeoCities in the early days of the internet. For those who didn't share the experience, GeoCities was a free web hosting platform where you could build your own site within a "neighborhood," which many view as an early example of social media.

GeoCities closed down in 2009, but just a few years later came Neocities as a revival of the old format. Today, it hosts nearly 1.5 million websites created by users. It's a portal into an age of the internet that's certainly nostalgic for a lot of us, but its popularity has been hindered of late by Microsoft's Bing search engine.

Kyle Drake, founder of Neocities, noticed in mid-2025 that Bing was completely blocking official Neocities content from appearing in search. Assuming it was an error, Drake reached out to Microsoft and cleared things up. Then it happened again in January 2026.

Not only did Bing remove Neocities content, but this time it began promoting an unofficial clone site where users were urged to provide a username and password. Concerned over phishing or other malicious intent, Drake again contacted Microsoft. This time, the AI-powered Bing support chatbot wouldn't let Drake through.

Speaking with Ars Technica, which originally reported on the story, Drake said he "tried everything," going so far as to buy ads on Bing in the hopes of speaking to an actual support rep. Drake noted that "there's probably an actual human being at Bing that actually could fix this." Unfortunately, once you get into Webmaster Tools, the support process is "all kinds of automated."

After Ars Technica reached out to Microsoft, it appeared that some of the inappropriate Bing blocks were removed. But although the Neocities front page was again showing up in Bing, many of its subdomains that should have a high search ranking remained blocked.

Microsoft's reasoning revolves around what it says are violated policies designed to keep low-quality content out of Bing. As Ars points out, Microsoft wouldn't identify specific sites causing issues, nor would it acknowledge open support tickets. Drake is happy to remove sites that trigger the block, if only Microsoft would let him know.

Bing eventually deranked the clone site after receiving enough complaints, but as Drake posits, another could show up at any time with intentions of phishing. It's not hard to beat the ranking of a blocked site, after all.

Drake published a blog post on January 27 detailing the issues. He notes that search engines that don't piggyback off of Bing, like Google, don't block Neocities sites. For now, he urges Neocities users to tread carefully lest they stumble into something unofficial and potentially dangerous, saying, "We recommend using search engines other than Bing."

Testing Bing search this morning, the Neocities front page indeed shows up in search results. However, attempting to search for individual sites (or even the official Neocities blog where Drake published the Bing issues) is a lost cause. Let's hope Microsoft and Neocities can get this resolved sooner rather than later.

What are your thoughts about Neocities being blocked by Bing search? Which search engine do you primarily use these days? Let me know in the comments section!

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