Indexing
IndexNow
Tell Bing, Yandex, and Naver that a URL changed, so they can crawl it sooner.
IndexNow is a push protocol supported by Bing, Yandex, and Naver. Google does not support IndexNow, so use URL Inspection for Google.
How to run it
- Set an 8–128 character API key. GSC Wizard then checks the
{key}.txtfile at your site root automatically, on save and whenever you open the page, and tells you if it cannot be reached. You can download the ready-made key file from the same panel. - Submit a single URL, import from a sitemap, or upload a file (XML/TXT/CSV).
What you get
- A paginated submission history with the response code IndexNow returned per URL.
- Duplicate protection (URLs submitted within the last 10 minutes are skipped) and off-property URLs are skipped.
Response codes
The code recorded against each URL is what the IndexNow API replied when we sent it. It is not confirmation that a search engine crawled or indexed the page.
- 202 Accepted: received, key validation pending. This is the usual reply. The engines fetch your key file afterwards to confirm you own the site, and discard the whole batch without further notice if it is not reachable, so keep the key file hosted and use “Verify Key File” to check it.
- 200 OK: submitted and accepted, with the key already validated.
- 403 Key rejected: no key file at the expected location, or its contents do not match your key.
- 422 Rejected: the URLs do not belong to the host that was submitted, or the key does not match the protocol schema.
- 429 Rate limited: IndexNow throttled the batch as potential spam. Wait, then resubmit.
A 202 is a receipt, not a delivery confirmation. If submissions look successful but nothing appears in Bing Webmaster Tools, the key file is the first thing to check: without it every batch is accepted and then dropped.
Part of Indexing & URL inspection. Related: URL Inspection.