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IndexNow

Easy to use protocol that websites can call to notify Bing whenever website contents on any URL is updated or created allowing instant crawling, and discovery of the URL

Implementation Steps

1

Generate API Key

API key is needed to match the ownership of the domain along with submitted URLs; should be of minimum 8 characters.

2

Host API key

Host your API key on the root directory in txt format. This will help in verifying the ownership of the submitted URLs

3

Submit URLs with parameters

Webmasters can submit individual or bulk URLs. Just submit your key location as URL parameter.

4

Get details on how many submitted

URLs submitted and discovered by Bing can be seen in the Bing webmaster Tools portal (sign-in required)

Generate API Key

IndexNow key

Samples

Verification of host on API key

You will need to host your UTF-8 key file at

https://www.example.com/.txt

with the key in the content of the text file.

Sending of URLs

https://www.bing.com/indexnow?url=http://www.example.com/product.html&key=

SUBMITTING SET OF URLS VIA AN HTTP REQUEST

To submit a set of URLs using an HTTP request, and issue your POST JSON request to the following URL:

Request 
                POST /IndexNow HTTP/1.1
                Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
                Host: api.indexnow.org
                {
                  "host": "www.example.org",
                  "key": "",
                  "keyLocation": "https://www.example.org/.txt",
                  "urlList": [
                      "https://www.example.org/url1",
                      "https://www.example.org/folder/url2",
                      "https://www.example.org/url3"
                      ]
                }
Response
HTTP Code
Response
Reasons
200
Ok
URL submitted successfully
400
Bad request
Invalid format
403
Forbidden
In case of key not valid (e.g. key not found, file found but key not in the file)
422
Unprocessable Entity
In case of URLs don’t belong to the host or the key is not matching the schema in the protocol
429
Too Many Requests
Too Many Requests (potential Spam)

Best Practices

Don’t send spam URLs

Send URLs real-time as soon as changes done

Sending a lot of URLs doesn’t affect ranking but continuous sending might

Follow webmaster content guidelines

FAQs

I submitted a URL, but I don’t see the URL indexed?
Using IndexNow ensures that search engines are aware of your website changes. Using IndexNow does not guarantee that web pages will be crawled or indexed by search engines. It may take time for the change to reflect in search engines.
I just started using IndexNow, should I publish URLs changed last year?
No, you should publish only URLs changing (added, updated, or deleted) since the time you start to use IndexNow.
Does the URLs submitted count on my crawl quota?
Yes, every crawl counts towards your crawl quota. By publishing them to INDEXNOW, you notify search engines that you care about these URLs, search engines will generally prioritize crawling these URLs versus other URLs they know.
More FAQs >>