SEO

IndexNow Explained: How to Get New Pages Discovered Faster

By Kathy P. Carr · 2026-10-04 · 2 min read

What IndexNow is

IndexNow is an open protocol that lets a website tell search engines the moment a page is added, updated or deleted, instead of waiting for a crawler to come back and notice. Bing describes it as a way to take control of indexing with real-time notifications, and says participating engines will generally prioritize crawling submitted URLs over other URLs they already know about.

How the protocol works

There are three moving parts: a key, a key file and a submission.

• The key. A string of 8 to 128 characters using letters, numbers and dashes.
• The key file. A UTF-8 text file containing the key, hosted on your site, usually at the root as the key followed by .txt. This is how a search engine confirms you control the domain. You can host it elsewhere and point to it with the keyLocation parameter, but the location limits which URLs it can vouch for: a key file inside a directory only covers URLs under that directory.
• The submission. For one URL, send an HTTP GET with the url and key parameters. For many, send a JSON POST with up to 10,000 URLs per request.

The IndexNow documentation says submitted URLs are automatically shared with all other participating search engines, so one request reaches the whole network rather than just the endpoint you called.

What it does and does not guarantee

The documentation is explicit about the limit: an HTTP 200 response only indicates that the search engine has received your URL. It does not promise the page will be crawled quickly, indexed or ranked. Submission frequency matters too. Sending excessive requests can trigger rate limiting, which returns an HTTP 429, so submit when something has genuinely changed.

Where Google fits in

Bing's IndexNow page and the protocol documentation list participating engines generically, and Google is not mentioned on Bing's page. For Google, the documented route is different. Google says submitting a sitemap is a hint rather than a guarantee, that it ignores priority and changefreq, and that it uses a lastmod value if it is consistently and verifiably accurate. So for Google the practical steps are a clean, accurate sitemap, internal links to new pages and Search Console monitoring.

A sensible publishing workflow

1. Publish the page and confirm it returns a normal 200 response.
2. Make sure the sitemap includes the new URL with an accurate lastmod date.
3. Submit the new URL, plus any index or hub pages that now link to it, through IndexNow.
4. Check Search Console for the Google side and Bing Webmaster Tools for Bing.

When it is worth the effort

IndexNow is cheap to add and most useful for sites that publish or change content often, such as news, listings or a regularly updated article library. For a site that rarely changes it adds little. Either way, treat it as a faster way to be noticed, not a substitute for pages worth indexing.

Frequently asked questions

Does IndexNow work with Google?

Bing's IndexNow page does not mention Google among the engines it describes. For Google, use an accurate sitemap, good internal linking and Search Console.

How many URLs can I submit at once?

A single POST request can contain up to 10,000 URLs, according to the IndexNow documentation.

Does a 200 response mean my page is indexed?

No. The documentation says a 200 only indicates the search engine received the URL, not that it will be indexed.

Sources

1. IndexNow documentation — IndexNow.org
2. IndexNow: Get started — Microsoft Bing
3. Build and submit a sitemap — Google Search Central

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