IndexNow

What is IndexNow?

IndexNow is an open protocol that lets websites tell participating search engines immediately when a URL has been added, updated or deleted, instead of waiting for the engines to crawl and notice. A site sends a simple HTTP request listing the changed URLs, and the engines that support it share the notification with each other.

Microsoft Bing and Yandex launched IndexNow in 2021. Other engines, including Seznam, Naver and Yep, have joined since. Google does not support IndexNow. It said it would test the protocol but has not adopted it, so Google still finds changes through crawling, links and XML sitemaps.

To use IndexNow, you create a key, host it as a text file on your site to prove ownership, and send URLs to an IndexNow endpoint, either one at a time or up to 10,000 per request. Many content management systems, plugins and CDNs can do this automatically.

Why IndexNow matters for SEO

For engines that support it, IndexNow can get new and updated pages crawled faster and reduce unnecessary crawling of pages that have not changed. That matters for Bing SEO, and Bing’s index also supplies results to other services. It is most useful for sites that change often, such as news, ecommerce stock and prices, or job listings.

It does not guarantee indexing or rankings, and it does nothing for Google. Keep an accurate sitemap with lastmod dates for Google.

How to set up IndexNow

1. Check whether your CMS, plugin or CDN already supports IndexNow, and turn it on if so.
2. Otherwise, generate a key (8–128 characters of letters, numbers and dashes) and host it at your site root as a text file named after the key, containing the key.
3. Send changed URLs to api.indexnow.org/indexnow or a participating engine’s endpoint, with a GET request for one URL or a POST with a JSON list for many.
4. Submit only URLs that have actually changed, and include deleted URLs too.
5. Check submissions and any errors in Bing Webmaster Tools.

IndexNow example

POST https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8

{
  "host": "www.example.com",
  "key": "5f2b7c9e1a4d4e8b9c3f6a2d7e1b4c8f",
  "keyLocation": "https://www.example.com/5f2b7c9e1a4d4e8b9c3f6a2d7e1b4c8f.txt",
  "urlList": [
    "https://www.example.com/shoes/trail/",
    "https://www.example.com/blog/new-season/"
  ]
}