What IndexNow is
IndexNow is an open protocol for telling search engines “this URL was added, changed or deleted” the moment it happens, instead of waiting for them to recrawl your sitemap. According to indexnow.org, the participating engines are Bing, Yandex, Seznam.cz, Naver, Yep and Amazon, and a submission to any one endpoint is shared with all of them. Google doesn’t take part.
How to set it up
- Create a key. 8 to 128 characters: letters, numbers and dashes. The “New” button makes a random 32-character one.
- Host the key file. A UTF-8 text file named
your-key.txt, containing only the key, at your site root (https://example.com/your-key.txt). If you can’t use the root, host it in a folder and fill in the key location. The engines then only accept URLs in that folder or below. - Verify here. We fetch the file and check its content equals the key. A site that redirects to another host (say, example.com to www.example.com) needs the file and the submissions on the final host, and we warn you when that applies.
- Submit changed URLs. Up to 10 at a time here, sent as one POST to the shared endpoint
api.indexnow.org. We re-check the key file on the server right before sending and only submit URLs on your host.
Use it the way it’s meant
Submit a URL when its content really changes: a new page, an edit that matters, a deletion. The IndexNow FAQ asks you not to resubmit the same URL many times a day, and to leave at least five minutes between updates of a frequently changing page. For ongoing use, most CMSs and CDNs can ping IndexNow automatically on publish.
IndexNow complements your sitemap; it doesn’t replace it. Check that one is in good shape with the sitemap validator.