What is IndexNow?
IndexNow is an open-source protocol that lets websites instantly notify search engines when content is added, updated, or deleted. It's supported by Bing, Yandex, Naver, Seznam.cz, and Yep — but NOT by Google, which has stated it has no plans to adopt it.
What to know in practice
- Submission process: POST a JSON payload with up to 10,000 URLs to a single IndexNow endpoint; the receiving engine forwards to all participating engines automatically.
- Verification: requires a static key file at the site root (e.g., /a1b2c3d4.txt containing the key string) so search engines can confirm domain ownership.
- Bing typically picks up submitted URLs within 24-48 hours; Yandex slightly slower; Naver/Seznam/Yep variable.
- Quota is generous (10K URLs per submission with no daily cap) but engines may rate-limit re-submissions of the same URL within a 7-day window.
Common misconception
IndexNow does NOT push URLs into Google's index. For Google, the only API-side levers are sitemap resubmission (signals re-process) and manual 'Request Indexing' in GSC URL Inspection (UI-only, capped at ~10/day per property).