IndexNow

What it means

IndexNow is an open protocol through which a website instantly tells participating search engines that it has added, changed or removed pages. It speeds up indexing of changes without waiting for a crawler to discover them on its next visit.

Microsoft Bing and Yandex introduced the protocol, and other search engines such as Seznam and Naver support it. When a site notifies one participating engine, the notification is shared with the others. Google does not currently support it and relies on its own crawling and the XML sitemap.

Verification works through a key, a text file containing a random string hosted on the site. The search engine checks that the key exists on the site and thus knows the notification comes from the real domain owner rather than a third party.

How it works in practice

Many content management systems and SEO plugins already support IndexNow and send notifications automatically whenever a page is published or edited. A custom setup needs only a simple request with the list of changed URLs and the key.

The protocol is especially useful for sites whose content changes often, such as online shops with price and stock changes, news sites or listings pages. It also eases pressure on the crawl budget, since crawlers need not repeatedly check unchanged pages.

IndexNow does not replace the XML sitemap or tools such as Search Console. They work best together: the sitemap gives an overview of the whole site, IndexNow reports changes instantly and Search Console shows how Google sees the site.

What to watch out for

A change notification does not guarantee that a search engine will index the page or improve its ranking. Content quality and technical SEO decide, and sending notifications about unchanged or low-quality pages is pointless.

The key must remain accessible on the site, or search engines will stop accepting notifications. When changing domain, migrating the site or switching hosting, remember to move the key and update the settings in the system that sends notifications.