Digital Marketing Agency in Pune: What IndexNow Is, Which Search Engines Use It, and Whether Your Business Website Needs It
IndexNow is a free protocol that lets your website tell participating search engines the moment a page is added, changed or deleted, instead of waiting for their crawlers to find out. It does not notify Google, and it does not guarantee that anything is indexed; both IndexNow's own FAQ and Bing's documentation say that submitting a URL does not guarantee crawling or indexing. For a business website in Pune or anywhere in India, it is a small, cheap addition that can speed up discovery on Bing and the other engines that take part, and it is worth switching on if your platform offers it as a setting. It is not a substitute for a good XML sitemap, clean internal links or Google Search Console, and it will not rescue a site that has indexing problems for other reasons. This guide is for the owner or marketing manager who has heard the term from an SEO vendor and wants to know what it does, and for the developer who has to set it up. It covers how the protocol works, the key file, the request format and response codes, how to turn it on in WordPress, Shopify and custom sites, how often to submit, how to check that it works, and the honest limits.
Our sources are the IndexNow documentation and FAQ at indexnow.org and Microsoft's Bing Webmaster Tools IndexNow page. Where a point is our own practice, we say so. We quote no indexing-speed figures, because neither source gives any and we have not measured one that would apply to your site.
What problem IndexNow solves
Search engines find pages by crawling: following links and reading sitemaps. A crawler returns to your site on a schedule it chooses, so a page you published this morning may not be seen for some time, and a page you deleted may stay in results after it has gone. IndexNow reverses the direction. Your site sends a short message saying "this address was added, updated or removed", and the engines that take part can prioritise it. The IndexNow documentation describes it as letting site owners notify participating search engines when URLs are added, updated or deleted so the changes can be indexed faster, and Bing says search engines generally prioritise crawling submitted URLs and that submissions count toward your crawl quota.
For which kinds of business does this matter? Anywhere content changes often or goes out of date fast: a store that adds products and takes them out of stock, a news or event page, a job board, a clinic that updates opening hours, an NGO that launches time-limited campaign pages. For a brochure site that changes twice a year, it matters little.
Which search engines use it
IndexNow's FAQ lists these endpoints: Amazon, Bing, Naver, Seznam.cz, Yandex and Yep. It also offers a global endpoint that shares your submission with all IndexNow-enabled engines. The protocol's documentation says participating engines agree to share submitted URLs with each other.
The sources we read do not mention Google. IndexNow's documentation and FAQ do not list it, and Bing's page does not name any engines. So we cannot say, and you should not assume, that IndexNow notifies Google. For Google, the tools remain your XML sitemap, internal links and the URL Inspection tool in Search Console. This is the most important sentence in this article for a business buying SEO services: if a vendor sells IndexNow as a way to get indexed on Google, ask them to show you where Google says so.
Does it matter, given that Google is the dominant engine in India? It is a fair question, and we would answer it by looking at your own data rather than a general claim. Open your analytics and see how much search traffic arrives from Bing, and whether any arrives from Yandex, Naver or Seznam; for most Indian local businesses it is a minority of the total. The point is that IndexNow is cheap enough that it can be worth enabling even for a minority share, provided it costs you little time and creates no risk.
How it works, step by step
Step 1: Create a key
IndexNow's FAQ says to generate a string of 8 to 128 characters using letters, numbers and hyphens, for example with a GUID or UUID generator. Save it as a UTF-8 text file named after the key, containing the key, and upload it to your domain root or another publicly accessible location. Verify that it works by opening https://yourdomain.com/{your-key}.txt in a browser. The documentation strongly recommends placing the key file at the root.
If your CMS or host handles IndexNow for you, the FAQ says you do not need to create the key file yourself, because the platform will do it.
The key is not a secret in the way a password is: it is published at a public address by design, so that engines can confirm you own the site. Do not reuse a password or any private token as the key.
Step 2: Submit changed URLs
For one URL, you can send an HTTP request of the form https://<searchengine>/indexnow?url=...&key=..., optionally with &keyLocation=.... For several, you POST JSON with Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8 to the endpoint, with host, key, urlList and optionally keyLocation. The documentation says you can send up to 10,000 URLs in one POST and that http and https URLs can be mixed. Bing's page shows the global form of the endpoint at api.indexnow.org.
A minimal example body looks like this:
{
"host": "www.example.com",
"key": "your-key-here",
"keyLocation": "https://www.example.com/your-key-here.txt",
"urlList": [
"https://www.example.com/blog/new-article/",
"https://www.example.com/services/updated-service/"
]
}
The host must match the addresses you submit. Submitting a URL that belongs to another host is one of the errors listed below.
Step 3: Read the response
The documentation lists these codes:
- 200: the URL was submitted successfully.
- 202: the URL was received, and key validation is pending.
- 400: invalid format.
- 403: the key is not valid, for example the key file was not found or does not contain the key.
- 422: the URLs do not belong to the host, or the key does not match the protocol schema.
- 429: too many requests, which the documentation flags as potential spam.
A 200 means only that the engine received your submission, not that the page has been indexed. Treat it the way you would treat a delivery receipt.
What to submit, and what not to
This is where well-meant setups go wrong, so we are specific.
Submit pages that were added, meaningfully updated or removed. IndexNow's FAQ says to submit URLs when content is added, updated or removed, and says to submit pages that return 404 or 410 so that search engines can remove outdated results.
Do not resubmit unchanged pages. The FAQ says repeated submissions without meaningful changes waste crawl quota, and that for complete coverage you should use XML sitemaps instead. Bing's page similarly says to submit only URLs that changed since you started using IndexNow, not older ones.
Mind the frequency. The FAQ says to avoid resubmitting the same URL many times a day unless the content changes meaningfully, to wait at least five minutes between updates to a frequently changing page, and, if you receive a 429, to wait at least ten minutes before resubmitting unless the change is significant.
Do not submit a whole site on day one. A common mistake is to push every URL at once in a bulk upload. The sources point to changed content, and to sitemaps for full coverage. Let your sitemap carry the history.
These rules also make clear what IndexNow is not. It is a change-notification channel. It does not replace the sitemap, and it does not fix duplicated, thin or blocked pages. If a page is set to noindex, blocked by robots.txt or a duplicate of another, notifying engines about it just advertises a page they will decline to index. Our guide on a new website not on Google walks through the causes you need to rule out first.
How to switch it on, by platform
Both sources list platforms that support IndexNow natively or through add-ons. We repeat what they say and add our own practical notes.
WordPress. The sources name plugin support in the major SEO plugins, with Bing's page listing Yoast, Rank Math, AIOSEO and SEOPress. Typically you enable a setting, the plugin creates and hosts the key, and it submits URLs when you publish or update content. Our practice is to turn it on only in one plugin; if you run two SEO plugins, which we advise against, you may produce duplicate submissions. Our guide to WordPress plugin audits explains how to keep plugin overlap in check.
Shopify. Bing's page says IndexNow is built into Shopify and needs no setup, and also lists it among platforms with extensions. Check Bing Webmaster Tools to see what has been received.
Wix, Duda, GoDaddy and others. The Bing page says IndexNow is built into Wix Studio, Duda, GoDaddy, XenForo and Milestone with no setup needed. If your site is on one of these, there is probably nothing to do except confirm in Bing Webmaster Tools.
Cloudflare. Bing's page says Cloudflare supports IndexNow through its Crawler Hints feature, enabled in your Cloudflare account. The FAQ also names Cloudflare as a CDN with native support. If your site sits behind Cloudflare, check that setting before adding a separate plugin so you do not run two mechanisms.
Other CMSs. The FAQ lists Joomla, Drupal, Bitrix24, PrestaShop, MODX, Shopware, OpenCart, Typo3 and Umbraco as supported through plugins or extensions.
Custom-built sites. This is where a developer is needed. The simplest reliable approach is a small step in your publishing or deployment process that, after a page goes live, sends the changed URLs to the endpoint. Keep these points in mind, which come from the rules above:
- Submit only the addresses that changed in that release, not the whole site.
- Use the same host and scheme as your canonical URLs, because a
wwwand non-wwwmismatch is one cause of 422 errors. - Submit removed pages that now return 404 or 410.
- Log the response code so that a 403 or 429 is visible rather than silent.
- Make sure the key file is served at the root with a plain-text response, and that the deployment does not delete it.
We run the same kind of step for this website: after a batch of articles is published, the new addresses are submitted and the response is noted. We mention this as an honest example of our own practice, not as a claim about results.
How to check that it is working
The Bing page says you can use Bing Webmaster Tools to confirm whether search engines have received your submitted URLs, and that your site may already be publishing via IndexNow, which you can check in the same portal. A sensible check routine is:
- Open
https://yourdomain.com/{your-key}.txtand confirm it returns the key as plain text. - Publish or update one page and confirm a submission is made, either in the plugin's log or your own.
- Look in Bing Webmaster Tools for the submission.
- A few days later, search for the page on Bing to see if it is indexed. Do not expect a fixed time; neither source promises one.
If you receive a 403, the key file is missing, in the wrong place or does not contain the key. If you receive a 422, the URL's host or scheme does not match what you declared. A 429 means you are submitting too often.
What IndexNow cannot do
It cannot make Google index your page, so keep your sitemap and Search Console in order, including understanding Search Console property types. It cannot make a weak page rank. It does not replace internal linking, which is how crawlers of every kind find your important pages; see our guide on site structure and sitemap planning. It cannot undo a block in robots.txt. And it cannot guarantee speed, because both sources say indexing is not guaranteed.
There is also a quieter point about AI search. Some businesses ask whether IndexNow helps them appear in AI assistants' answers. The sources we read say nothing about that, and we will not claim it. If appearing in AI answers is your goal, start with crawl access and clear content; our article on AI crawlers and robots.txt covers what you can control.
A decision guide for a Pune business
Our own judgement, to be weighed against your analytics:
- Switch it on if your platform offers a one-click setting, you publish or change content often, or you already see some traffic from Bing.
- Consider a custom setup if you run a large catalogue or a news-style site with frequent changes, and you have a developer on retainer.
- Do not pay extra for it. Both sources describe it as a free, open protocol. A vendor charging a monthly fee for "IndexNow submission" should be able to explain what they do that a plugin setting does not.
- Do not let it distract you from the basics. A clean sitemap, a fast mobile site, useful content and sound internal links do far more for visibility on every search engine.
If a vendor quotes you for this, ask the following: which engines does it notify, and can they show it in the documentation; what is submitted and when; how are failures reported; and where is the key file hosted and who controls it. Our guide to monthly marketing reports shows what a report should contain so that setup tasks like this do not pass as results.
Working with Govindani Infotech
We are a digital marketing and web development company at 2nd Floor, Landmark Plaza, 206 Satara Road, Parvati Paytha, Pune 411009. If you would like a review of how your site is crawled and indexed, including whether IndexNow, your sitemap and Search Console are set up properly, our SEO service and website creation service pages describe how we work, or you can contact us on 092019 58274. We will tell you what is worth doing and what is not.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is IndexNow?
IndexNow is an open protocol that lets a website notify participating search engines when URLs are added, updated or deleted, so that the changes can be indexed faster. You host a key file on your domain and send the changed URLs to an endpoint.
Does Google support IndexNow?
The IndexNow documentation and FAQ we reviewed do not list Google among the supported engines, and Bing's page does not name any. Do not assume it notifies Google. Use your XML sitemap and Search Console for Google.
Does IndexNow guarantee my page will be indexed?
No. IndexNow's FAQ states that submitting a URL does not guarantee immediate indexing, and Bing says it does not guarantee that pages will be crawled or indexed. A 200 response only means the submission was received.
How often should I submit URLs to IndexNow?
Submit when content is added, meaningfully updated or removed. The FAQ advises against resubmitting the same URL many times a day, suggests waiting at least five minutes between updates to a frequently changing page, and says to wait at least ten minutes after a 429 response unless the change is significant.
Do I need a plugin to use IndexNow?
Not necessarily. Some platforms, including Shopify, Wix Studio and GoDaddy according to Bing's page, have it built in. WordPress sites typically use the setting in their SEO plugin, and custom sites can send a request from their publishing process.
Sources
- IndexNow documentation and FAQ at indexnow.org: purpose, key file requirements and length, request formats, the 10,000-URL limit, response codes, the list of endpoints, guidance on frequency, changed and deleted URLs, sitemaps for full coverage, and supported CMS platforms.
- Microsoft Bing Webmaster Tools, "IndexNow" page: no guarantee of crawling or indexing, key hosting and
keyLocation, request format, response codes, when to notify, built-in and plugin integrations, Cloudflare Crawler Hints and use of Bing Webmaster Tools to confirm receipt. - Our own judgement is labelled as such: the decision guide, the custom-site steps and the vendor questions are practice, not statements from those sources.
- We cite no indexing-speed, traffic or ranking figures, and make no claim about Google, AI assistants or any specific engine's market share in India.
About the author
This guide was written by the digital marketing and SEO team at Govindani Infotech, Pune.