IndexNow

IndexNow is an open source protocol that allows website owners to instantly notify participating search engines when content on their website has been added, updated, or deleted. It enables search engines to crawl and process those changes far more quickly than they might through their standard crawling schedules. Rather than waiting for a search engine to rediscover and recrawl a page through its regular crawling activity, IndexNow allows websites to proactively push a signal to search engines the moment a change is made.

The protocol was jointly introduced by Microsoft Bing and Yandex in October 2021, and subsequently adopted by a growing number of search engines, including Yandex, Seznam, Naver, and DuckDuckGo — which sources its results from Bing. Notably, Google ran trials of IndexNow but has not formally adopted the protocol, instead continuing to rely on its own crawling infrastructure and URL submission tools within Google Search Console.

How IndexNow works:

• A website owner generates a unique API key and hosts it as a text file at the root of their domain to verify ownership
• When a page is created, updated, or removed, the website sends an HTTP request to an IndexNow endpoint containing the URL of the changed page and the API key
• The participating search engine receives the notification, verifies the key, and schedules the URL for prompt crawling and processing
• Because IndexNow is a shared protocol, a single ping to one participating search engine is automatically shared with all other IndexNow participants, meaning one submission can reach multiple search engines simultaneously

Ways to Implement IndexNow

1. Directly via the IndexNow API, where URL change notifications are sent programmatically as content is published or updated
2. Through CMS plugins — IndexNow support has been built into a range of popular content management systems and SEO plugins, including Yoast SEO for WordPress and built-in integrations in platforms such as Wix and Duda, allowing notifications to be sent automatically without manual intervention
3. Via third-party SEO tools that support the protocol

IndexNow addresses a genuine challenge in SEO: the lag between publishing or updating content and that content being discovered, crawled, and reflected in search results. For websites that publish content frequently or make regular updates, this lag can mean that new or refreshed pages take longer than desirable to appear or be updated in search results. By proactively notifying search engines of changes, IndexNow can accelerate the discovery and processing of updated content, which is particularly valuable for news publishers, eCommerce sites with frequently changing product information, and any website where content freshness is important.

While Google’s absence from the protocol limits its impact for SEO professionals primarily focused on Google Search, IndexNow remains a worthwhile implementation for improving visibility across Bing and other participating search engines. Many CMS platforms now support it natively, making it straightforward to enable with minimal technical effort.