IndexNow Wizard

About This Tool

IndexNow is a protocol that lets you instantly notify search engines when your content changes. Instead of waiting days or weeks for crawlers to discover your updates, IndexNow pushes notifications directly to Bing, Yandex, and other participating search engines. Our IndexNow Wizard guides you through the entire setup process: generating your unique API key, hosting the verification file, validating your configuration, and submitting URLs in bulk. No technical expertise required.

What is IndexNow?

IndexNow is an open-source protocol developed by Microsoft and Yandex that enables website owners to instantly inform search engines about content changes. When you publish, update, or delete a page, you send a simple HTTP request to notify participating search engines.

The protocol works by having you host a small text file (containing your API key) on your website's root directory. This proves you own the domain. Once verified, you can submit up to 10,000 URLs per request.

Key benefits:

Instant notification to search engines (no waiting for crawlers)
Reduced crawl load on your server
Faster indexing of new and updated content
Free and open protocol (no paid tiers)

Which Search Engines Support IndexNow?

IndexNow is supported by several major search engines:

Supported:

Microsoft Bing – The primary backer of IndexNow
Yandex – Russia's largest search engine
Naver – South Korea's dominant search engine
Seznam.cz – Czech Republic's search engine

Not Supported:

Google – Has its own Indexing API (limited to job postings and broadcast events)
DuckDuckGo – Uses Bing's index, so IndexNow helps indirectly

While Google doesn't support IndexNow, Bing and Yandex together represent approximately 10% of global search traffic. For sites in Russia, Korea, or Czech Republic, the percentage is much higher.

How to Set Up IndexNow

Setting up IndexNow involves four simple steps:

Generate an API Key: Your API key is a unique identifier (8-128 alphanumeric characters). Use our generator above or create your own hexadecimal string.
Host the Key File: Create a text file named [your-key].txt in your website's root directory. The file should contain only the key itself. For example, if your key is abc123def456, create a file at https://yoursite.com/abc123def456.txt containing just abc123def456.
Validate Your Setup: Use our validator to confirm the key file is accessible. We'll fetch the file and verify its contents match your key.
Submit URLs: Once validated, paste your URLs (one per line) and submit. We'll notify Bing, Yandex, and the IndexNow API simultaneously.

Best Practices

When to use IndexNow:

Publishing new blog posts or product pages
Updating existing content significantly
Deleting or redirecting pages
Launching a new site section

When NOT to use IndexNow:

Minor typo fixes or formatting changes
Pages you don't want indexed (use robots.txt instead)
Spamming the same URLs repeatedly

Rate limits: IndexNow allows up to 10,000 URLs per submission. However, submitting the same URL repeatedly may result in rate limiting (HTTP 429). Only submit URLs that have actually changed.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does Google support IndexNow?

No. Google has publicly stated they have no plans to adopt IndexNow. They prefer their own crawling algorithms and offer the Google Indexing API, which is officially limited to job postings and broadcast event schema. However, DuckDuckGo uses Bing's index, so IndexNow submissions to Bing indirectly help your DuckDuckGo rankings.

Is IndexNow free?

Yes, IndexNow is completely free and open-source. There are no paid tiers or submission limits (beyond the 10,000 URLs per request technical limit). The protocol is maintained by Microsoft, Yandex, and the open-source community.

How fast is indexing after submission?

IndexNow notifies search engines instantly, but actual indexing depends on the search engine's processing queue. Typically, Bing indexes submitted URLs within minutes to hours. Yandex may take slightly longer. Remember that "indexed" doesn't guarantee ranking; it simply means the page is in the search engine's database.

Can I use IndexNow with WordPress?

Yes! Several WordPress plugins support IndexNow, including Yoast SEO, AIOSEO, and Rank Math. These plugins automatically submit URLs when you publish or update content. Our tool is useful for bulk submissions or if you don't use these plugins.

What happens if my key file is wrong?

If the key file doesn't exist or contains incorrect content, your submissions will fail with a 403 (Forbidden) error. Use our validator in Step 3 to check your setup before submitting URLs. The file must be publicly accessible without authentication.

Why does the wizard require validation before submission?

IndexNow returns 200 OK or 202 Accepted even if your API key is invalid – this is a security feature to prevent hackers from brute-forcing keys. Without validation, you'd get a "success" message but your URLs would be silently ignored. Our wizard verifies your key file is correctly hosted before allowing submissions, ensuring your URLs actually get indexed.

Step 1: Generate Your API Key

IndexNow Quick Reference