IndexNow: what it is, which search engines use it, and why Google is not one of them

What IndexNow does

In the words of indexnow.org, IndexNow is an easy way for website owners to instantly inform search engines about the latest content changes on their website. Instead of waiting for a crawler to come back and notice a change, you send a short notification (a “ping”) when a page is added, updated or deleted.

One feature makes it efficient: URLs submitted through IndexNow are shared with all participating search engines. You notify one endpoint and the others receive the information too.

Who takes part

The IndexNow FAQ also lists an Amazon endpoint among the participating endpoints, and explains that you submit to only one of them: your submission is then shared across all IndexNow-enabled search engines.

How it works, in four steps

1. Create a key: between 8 and 128 characters, using letters, numbers and dashes.
2. Host the key in a UTF-8 text file named after the key at the root of your site (or elsewhere, declared with keyLocation; the location then limits which URLs the key can validate).
3. Send the URL: a single URL with a GET request to https://<searchengine>/indexnow?url=…&key=…, or up to 10,000 URLs at once in a JSON POST with host, key and urlList.
4. Read the response: 200 means submitted, 202 received with the key still being validated, 400 invalid format, 403 invalid key, 422 URLs that don't belong to the host, 429 too many requests.

Good practice from the IndexNow FAQ

• Submit URLs that were added, updated or deleted, such as product pages, blog posts or event announcements.
• Do not submit the same URL many times a day without meaningful changes; the FAQ suggests at least 5 minutes between updates of the same URL and focusing on real content changes rather than cosmetic ones.
• Keep your sitemaps: the FAQ recommends using both, since sitemaps give the complete inventory and IndexNow the real-time notifications.
• Expect no promise: submitting a URL does not guarantee immediate indexing; engines still decide whether and when to crawl.

Common mistakes we see when checking a setup

Most IndexNow problems are not about the protocol itself but about what is sent and when. The response codes above help: a 403 or 422 almost always points to one of the first three items below.

• The key file is missing or unreachable, for example blocked by a redirect or by a rule that only serves HTML. The engine cannot validate the key, so the submission is refused.
• URLs from another host in the list: www.example.com and example.com are different hosts. Every URL must belong to the host declared in the request.
• A key stored in a sub-folder used for URLs outside that folder: with keyLocation, the key only validates URLs under its own path.
• Pinging on every build, even when nothing changed. This goes against the FAQ's advice to submit meaningful changes only, and can lead to 429 responses.
• Forgetting deletions: IndexNow is meant for deleted content too, so removed pages should be notified as well.
• Treating IndexNow as the whole indexing strategy: it says a page changed, it does not make a weak or duplicate page worth indexing. The quality of the page still decides what search engines do with it.

And for Google?

Google's documentation on asking Google to recrawl a site does not mention IndexNow. It lists two methods: the URL Inspection tool in Search Console for individual URLs (with a quota, and Google notes that requesting the same URL several times will not make it faster) and submitting a sitemap for large numbers of URLs. Google adds that crawling can take from a few days to a few weeks, and that requesting a crawl does not guarantee inclusion in results, instantly or at all.

In practice: IndexNow for the engines that take part, an up-to-date sitemap with accurate lastmod dates for everyone including Google, and Search Console for the occasional important page.

How we use it at Takat

IndexNow is set up on all our sites. When our engine publishes a page change, the same day it updates the sitemaps, Search Console and sends IndexNow notifications. We treat this as making sure search engines know about a change quickly, never as a promise of indexing or ranking. See our SEO service.