IndexNow Explained: Get New Pages Into Bing in Minutes

You publish a new page, and then you wait. Search engines find changes only when they next crawl your site, and for a small business that can take days or weeks. IndexNow lets you tell Bing and other search engines about a new or updated page the moment it changes, and this guide shows how to set it up in a few minutes.

What IndexNow is

IndexNow is an open protocol. That is a fancy way of saying it is a shared, public set of rules that any website and any search engine can use. It was started by Microsoft Bing and Yandex, and it is free.

The idea is simple. Instead of waiting for a search engine to come and look, your site sends a short message that says: "These pages are new or changed, please check them." One message is shared with every search engine that takes part.

Today, the search engines that use IndexNow include:

• Microsoft Bing
• Yandex
• Seznam.cz
• Naver
• Yep

Why Bing matters more than you think

Many business owners skip Bing because "everyone uses Google." But Bing is no longer just Bing.

• Microsoft Copilot answers questions using Bing's index.
• ChatGPT search uses Bing as one of its sources.

So when Golden Crust Bakery in Raleigh adds a new page for its holiday pie preorders, getting that page into Bing fast is the first step toward showing up when someone asks an AI assistant "where can I preorder a pie in Raleigh?"

If you want to see whether AI tools mention your business today, try AI Visibility or read does ChatGPT recommend your business?

How IndexNow works, step by step

Under the hood, IndexNow needs only two things: a key and a request.

1. The key file

The key is a random string of letters and numbers. You save it in a plain text file at the root of your site, with the key as the file name and as the file's content. For example:

3f8a9c2e7b1d4f6a

When a search engine gets a notification, it checks that this file exists on your site. That proves the message really came from the site owner, not from someone else trying to send fake URLs.

2. The request

Then your site sends a list of changed URLs. Here is what a request looks like:

POST https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8

{
  "host": "goldencrust.example",
  "key": "3f8a9c2e7b1d4f6a",
  "keyLocation": "https://goldencrust.example/3f8a9c2e7b1d4f6a.txt",
  "urlList": [
    "https://goldencrust.example/holiday-pies",
    "https://goldencrust.example/menu"
  ]
}

One request can hold up to 10,000 URLs. The search engine answers with a status code, and then decides when to visit the pages.

3. The search engine visits

IndexNow does not put a page into the index by itself. It tells the search engine where to look. The search engine still crawls the page and judges it like any other page.

What the response codes mean

When you send a request, the answer tells you whether it worked. These are the codes the IndexNow documentation lists:

Setting it up yourself vs. with IndexPedia

You can use IndexNow by hand. Some platforms and plugins send notifications for you. But doing it yourself has a few traps:

• You have to remember to send every new or updated page.
• Sending the same unchanged pages again and again wastes everyone's time and can lead to 429 errors.
• Pages that redirect, return errors, or are marked noindex should not be sent at all.
• You get no record of what was sent and what each engine answered.

IndexPedia handles all of this automatically.

What IndexPedia does

• Watches your sitemap for new and changed pages.
• Sends only what changed. Unchanged pages are never sent again.
• Sends in batches using your site's key, up to 10,000 pages per send, so large sites are covered.
• Skips bad URLs. Pages that redirect, fail to load or are marked noindex are left out.
• Keeps a run history. Every submission is logged with what was sent and the response.

It works with any platform, because it only needs your sitemap and the key file.

You also do not need to remember anything. Golden Crust Bakery adds a new page for its holiday pie preorders, the sitemap updates, and IndexPedia spots the new address on its next run and sends it. When they change the opening hours on the contact page, that page is sent again. Pages that did not change stay quiet. If a send fails, the run history shows the response code, so you know exactly what to fix instead of guessing.

How to set it up in IndexPedia

The whole setup is three steps, and the only thing you change on your site is one small text file.

1. 1
   Add your site

   Create a free IndexPedia account and enter your domain.

2. 2
   Upload the key file

   Download the key file IndexPedia gives you and upload it to the root of your site.

3. 3
   Let IndexPedia check it

   IndexPedia confirms the file is in place before it sends anything.

4. 4
   Done

   From now on, new and changed pages are sent automatically whenever your sitemap changes.

Where to upload the key file

• WordPress: Use your host's file manager or an FTP app and put the file in the same folder as wp-config.php.
• Custom or PHP sites: Upload it to your public web root, next to your index file.
• Site builders: Some builders do not let you upload files to the root. Check your builder's help pages, as some already send IndexNow notifications for you.

IndexNow in IndexPedia is free on every plan, including the Free plan.

How fast does it really work?

Bing receives the notification within seconds. After that, how quickly the page appears in Bing results depends on Bing's crawl and on how useful it thinks the page is. In practice that is often minutes to hours for the visit, and hours to a few days for the page to show up, instead of weeks.

The bars above are an illustration, not measured data. Your results depend on your site.

One more thing: IndexNow helps search engines find a page. It does not make a thin or duplicate page worth indexing. If a page is weak, it may still be left out. A site scan shows the problems that hold pages back, and AI Reach checks whether Bingbot and AI crawlers are allowed in by your robots.txt and firewall.

Common mistakes to avoid

1. Blocking Bingbot. If robots.txt or a firewall blocks Bingbot, IndexNow cannot help. Check this before anything else.
2. Sending every page every day. Only send pages that are new, changed or deleted.
3. Sending redirects and noindex pages. They waste the request and can confuse the engine.
4. Expecting Google to react. Google does not use IndexNow, so use Search Console and a clean sitemap for Google.
5. Forgetting the sitemap. IndexPedia reads your sitemap to spot changes, so keep it up to date. Our guide to robots.txt, llms.txt and schema fixes covers the basics.

FAQ