● The short answer
IndexNow is a free protocol that lets your website notify search engines the moment a page is added, updated or deleted. Bing, Yandex, Naver, Seznam, Yep and Amazon participate, and one submission is shared among them. Google does not use it. Yes, most sites should turn it on: it is low effort and speeds up Bing, which feeds Copilot.
Key takeaways
- IndexNow lets your site notify search engines instantly when a URL is added, changed or removed.
- Bing, Yandex, Naver, Seznam, Yep and Amazon participate; one submission is shared with all of them.
- Google does not use IndexNow, so keep sitemaps and Search Console for Google.
How IndexNow works
Traditionally, search engines find changes by re-crawling your site on their own schedule. IndexNow flips that. When you publish or change a page, your site sends a short message (a "ping") listing the URL to a participating search engine. That engine shares the notice with the others in the program, so one submission reaches all of them.
Per the >IndexNow FAQ, the mechanics are simple:
- You create a key (8 to 128 characters) and host it as a text file at the root of your site, which proves you own the domain.
- Your site sends URLs to an IndexNow endpoint, one at a time or up to 10,000 per request.
- A 200 response means the submission was accepted. A 202 on the first request means the key is still being verified.
- Submission is a hint, not a guarantee. Submitted URLs still count toward your crawl allowance, and the engine still decides what to index.
The how is where we come in.
What we walk through with you, for your business:
- Who supports it, and Google's status
- Should you use it?
- How to set it up
- Our take
Every business is different, so the plan is too. Tell us where you want to show up and we will show you what it takes.
Talk to usMore questions
Will IndexNow improve my rankings?
Not directly. It helps participating engines learn about changes sooner, so updated prices, hours or new pages show up faster. Rankings still depend on relevance, quality and trust, which IndexNow does not change. Think of it as reducing the delay between publishing and being eligible to appear, mainly in Bing and the services built on it.
Can IndexNow hurt my site?
Used normally, no. The risks are self-inflicted: submitting huge numbers of unchanged URLs, which wastes crawl allowance, or submitting URLs you do not want indexed. Make sure your setup only pings pages that are public and meant to rank, and only when they actually change.
Sources
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