Can Bing generate a search snippet with wording absent from the page?

Definition: Yes. Bing's November 2023 announcement describes query-specific AI captions that can use wording that does not mirror the exact wording on the web page. It says the captions analyze the search query, extract relevant insights from pages, and transform them into snippets.

Key facts

• Bing says its captions are tailored to each unique search query and may produce different snippets for different queries. Bing's caption announcement also says the wording may not mirror the page.
• Bing's snippet controls include max-snippet, which sets the maximum text length in characters, and nosnippet, which remains supported. Bing's 2020 snippet controls announcement describes these as content preview preferences.
• Bing's data-nosnippet attribute excludes marked sections from Bing Search snippets and AI summaries while the page remains indexed normally. Bing's 2025 announcement says the marked content remains available for ranking.

Why can the wording differ from the page?

Bing's November 2023 caption announcement says that the system analyzes a search query, extracts the most pertinent insights from web pages, and transforms them into snippets. It describes captions as tailored to each unique search query and says they may generate different snippets for different queries.

The same announcement explicitly says that captions may not mirror the exact wording on the web page. The answer to the question is therefore yes: a caption can be a query-shaped rendering of information from a page rather than a verbatim span copied from that page. The announcement names GPT 4 as part of the feature and says Bing uses signals and techniques to assess the generated text.

Which controls affect the preview?

Bing's 2020 snippet announcement says that max-snippet:[number] specifies the maximum text length, in characters, of a search-result snippet. It gives this example:

<meta name="robots" content="max-snippet:400" />

The same documentation says that a value of 0 means Bing will not show a text snippet, that -1 means there is no snippet length limit, and that NOSNIPPET can be combined with other robots meta tags. The caption announcement separately says that Bing respects MAXSNIPPET and NOSNIPPET for Generative Captions.

For selected page sections, Bing's 2025 data-nosnippet announcement documents an HTML attribute. Its example uses:

<div data-nosnippet>
  <h3>Subscriber Content</h3>
  <p>This section does not appear in Bing Search and Copilot answers.</p>
</div>

Bing says marked content is still indexed normally, excluded from snippets and AI summaries, and available for ranking. The attribute therefore controls the text used in a preview without removing the page from the index.

What should a site owner check?

Bing's announcements distinguish length limits from section-level exclusions. The 2020 snippet documentation describes its preview options as directive statements, while the 2023 caption announcement says Bing respects MAXSNIPPET and NOSNIPPET for captions.

After adding data-nosnippet, Bing's announcement recommends using Bing Webmaster Tools to verify the pages and says URL Inspection can show the last crawl time. The reviewed sources document controls and verification, but they do not provide a tool that exposes an exact caption and its corresponding source passage for a chosen query.

Related terms

• Bingbot
• data-nosnippet
• nosnippet
• max-snippet

FAQ

Does a different snippet mean that Bing changed the page?

No. Bing describes captions as generated display text that may not mirror the exact wording on the web page.

Can max-snippet force a particular wording?

No. Bing documents max-snippet as a limit on text length in characters. It does not document that directive as a wording selector.

Can selected content be excluded from Bing's captions?

Yes. Bing documents data-nosnippet for marking HTML sections that should not appear in Bing Search snippets or AI summaries while remaining indexed normally.

Sources

1. Bing Webmaster Blog, "Announcing Generative Captions", 15 November 2023
2. Bing Webmaster Blog, "Announcing new options for webmasters to control their snippets at Bing", 8 April 2020
3. Bing Webmaster Blog, "Bing Introduces Support for the data-nosnippet HTML Attribute", 15 October 2025

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