What is IndexNow? How IndexNow Improves SEO

Last Updated on June 26, 2025 by Subhash Jain

You publish a blog. Or update a product page. Or remove outdated content. But nothing happens.

Search engines don’t instantly pick up on these changes. Instead, they rely on bots that slowly crawl your site. Sometimes they return in a few hours. Other times, it takes days or even weeks. This delay can hurt visibility, especially when you’re putting effort into keeping your content current and relevant.

For websites that change often, such as news sites, ecommerce stores, or travel blogs, this delay creates a frustrating gap between when you update something and when it shows up in search results. That’s where IndexNow helps.

Why Indexing an Important Part of SEO?

Indexing is how search engines like Google or Bing store and organize information from websites so they can show it in search results. When a page is indexed, it means the search engine has visited the page, understood its content, and saved it in its database.

If your page isn’t indexed, it won’t appear in search results at all. That’s why indexing is a basic but important part of SEO. The faster your pages get indexed, the sooner people can find them when they search for related topics.

What is IndexNow?

IndexNow is a protocol developed by Microsoft and supported by search engines like Bing and Yandex that enables websites to instantly notify search engines when content is added, updated, or deleted. This eliminates the delay involved in waiting for traditional crawling and helps search engines keep their index fresh. It’s especially useful for websites that update content frequently or manage a large number of URLs.

IndexNow is free to use and can be set up in just a few minutes on platforms like WordPress and many other CMSs. Because it offers faster indexing with minimal setup and no downsides, adopting IndexNow is a smart move for any website looking to improve its visibility in search results.

How does IndexNow work?

IndexNow works through a simple ping URL system. Whenever you add, update, or delete a page on your site, your server sends a GET request to participating search engines with the URL of the changed content. Here’s how it works:

You generate a unique API key.
Place that key in a .txt file on your server.
Submit URLs directly via IndexNow API endpoints.
Search engines receive the signal and queue the URL for quick crawling and indexing.

Which search engines support IndexNow?

Currently, Microsoft Bing, Naver, Yandex, Yep, and Seznam.cz support IndexNow natively. Google started testing the protocol but hasn’t committed to full adoption yet. However, if you want quicker results with Bing or want to future-proof your SEO practices, implementing IndexNow can be beneficial.

Is IndexNow better than traditional crawling?

IndexNow doesn’t replace crawling but makes it more efficient. Traditional crawling relies on bots to discover changes, which can delay indexing. With IndexNow, you’re directly telling search engines that something’s changed, which speeds up the discovery process and reduces unnecessary server load.

What are the SEO benefits of using IndexNow?

Faster Indexing: Your new or updated content gets indexed quicker, especially useful for time-sensitive pages.
Reduced Crawl Budget Waste: Search engines spend less time crawling unchanged pages.
Better Visibility for Fresh Content: You improve chances of ranking faster, especially when publishing updates or launching products.
Improved Site Performance: Fewer crawls can mean less strain on your server.

Is IndexNow useful for all websites?

It’s particularly helpful for:

E-commerce websites with frequent product updates
News publishers or blogs with fresh daily content
Websites with large URL structures
SEO teams managing high-velocity publishing

For smaller websites with low update frequency, the impact might be minimal but still positive.

Is IndexNow safe for SEO?

Yes. It doesn’t harm rankings. It just improves communication between your website and search engines. It’s a recommended best practice by Bing and other engines that support the protocol.

Who uses IndexNow?

IndexNow is now being adopted by major platforms like Amazon, Shopify, Cloudflare, Ahrefs and Duda, making it easier for millions of websites to enable faster content indexing. With built-in support across these platforms, IndexNow is becoming a standard tool for smarter and quicker content discovery, helping businesses get their updates noticed by search engines without delay.

How many URLs can I submit using IndexNow?

You can submit:

Up to 10,000 URLs per day in batch submissions.
Single URL pings are also allowed, useful for small updates.

Just make sure your API key is valid and accessible in the root directory of your domain.

Do I still need an XML sitemap if I use IndexNow?

Yes, sitemaps are still relevant. IndexNow is an additional tool, not a replacement. Sitemaps give search engines a structured overview of your website, while IndexNow helps notify them of immediate changes.

How do I implement IndexNow on my website?

There are two main ways:

Manual Submission: You can use API endpoints to ping URLs yourself.
Automated via CMS or Plugin: Platforms like WordPress offer plugins that handle it automatically. Some CDN providers and SEO tools like Cloudflare, Yoast SEO, and Rank Math also support IndexNow.

Case Study: How to Use the Free IndexNow Tool in Bing Webmaster Tools

Submitting Single or Multiple URLs

Step 1: Generate Your API Key
To get started, you need an API key that connects your domain ownership with the URLs you plan to submit.
Visit this page to create and copy your key: Generate IndexNow API Key

Step 2: Host the API Key on Your Website
Place the API key in a UTF-8 encoded .txt file and upload it to your site’s root directory.
For example: https://www.samyakonline.net/18dd6bb08a50467ba011a90dcffa364d.txt
This file allows Bing to confirm ownership and validate your submissions.

Step 3: Submit Your URLs
You can now submit individual or multiple URLs by pinging Bing directly using this format:
Example:

https://www.bing.com/indexnow?url=https://www.samyakonline.net/blog/ecommerce-website-seo-packages-guide/&key=18dd6bb08a50467ba011a90dcffa364d

Step 4: Verify Submissions
Log in to your Bing Webmaster Tools account to check if your submitted URLs have been received and processed.

PHP Code Example for IndexNow Bulk URL Submission

<?php
// Path to your URL list file
$urlFile = 'urls.txt';

// Your key file hosted on your domain
$keyLocation = 'https://yourdomain.com/8c8880b58c1144f6a95e62e0e6d211db.txt';

// Read all URLs from the file
$urls = file($urlFile, FILE_IGNORE_NEW_LINES | FILE_SKIP_EMPTY_LINES);

// Check if URLs were loaded
if (!$urls) {
    die("No URLs found in file.\n");
}

foreach ($urls as $urlToSubmit) {
    $indexNowUrl = 'https://www.bing.com/IndexNow?url=' . urlencode($urlToSubmit) . '&keyLocation=' . urlencode($keyLocation);

    // Initialize cURL
    $ch = curl_init();
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_URL, $indexNowUrl);
    curl_setopt($ch, CURLOPT_RETURNTRANSFER, true);

    // Execute the request
    $response = curl_exec($ch);

    // Output result
    if (curl_errno($ch)) {
        echo "Error submitting $urlToSubmit: " . curl_error($ch) . "\n";
    } else {
        echo "Submitted: $urlToSubmit | Response: $response\n";
    }

    curl_close($ch);

    // Optional: Delay between requests
    sleep(1);
}
?>

How to Use Linux CLI for IndexNow Bulk URL Submission

#!/bin/bash

# Define variables: Step 1

API_KEY="18dd6bb08a50467ba011a90dcffa364d"
HOST="https://www.samyakonline.net"
KEY_LOCATION="https://www.samyakonline.net/18dd6bb08a50467ba011a90dcffa364d.txt"
URL_FILE="urls.txt"

# Convert URL list from txt to JSON array: Step 2

jq -R -s -c 'split("\n")[:-1]' "$URL_FILE" > urls.json

# Create JSON payload for IndexNow: Step 3

cat <<EOF > payload.json
{
  "host": "$HOST",
  "key": "$API_KEY",
  "keyLocation": "$KEY_LOCATION",
  "urlList": $(cat urls.json)
}
EOF

# Submit to Bing IndexNow API

Result of a successful command to ping Bing for Indexing

Conclusion

IndexNow is a simple yet powerful addition to your SEO toolkit. By allowing real-time communication with search engines, it helps improve indexing speed, reduce crawl waste, and boost the visibility of your content. Whether you’re managing a blog, eCommerce store, or enterprise site, IndexNow is worth implementing.

About the Author

Subash Jain is the SEO lead at Samyak Online SEO Services, drawing on over 20 years of hands‑on experience in search engine optimization and digital marketing. He oversees a team of SEO professionals dedicated to helping businesses improve visibility and drive organic growth.

Loved learning about IndexNow? Take your next step with Samyak Online:
Get a free consult — explore how IndexNow can enhance your site strategy by scheduling a complimentary session.

What is IndexNow? How IndexNow Improves SEO by Speeding Up Page Indexing