What is IndexNow and which engines use it?

IndexNow is an open protocol for telling search engines that a URL has been added, updated or deleted. You POST a JSON list of URLs plus a key that you host as a text file on your own domain, and participating engines share the submission with each other. The participants today are Microsoft Bing, Yandex, Seznam, Naver and Yep. Google does not participate.

Last updated 2026-07-28

What exactly is IndexNow?

It is a single unauthenticated HTTP POST. There is no account, no OAuth, and no dashboard — ownership is proven by hosting a key file on the domain you are submitting for, which means the whole protocol fits in about fifteen lines of code.

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

{
  "host": "example.com",
  "key": "a1b2c3d4e5f6a7b8c9d0e1f2a3b4c5d6",
  "keyLocation": "https://example.com/a1b2c3d4e5f6a7b8c9d0e1f2a3b4c5d6.txt",
  "urlList": [
    "https://example.com/new-page",
    "https://example.com/updated-page"
  ]
}

You can post to the shared endpoint at api.indexnow.org or to an individual engine’s endpoint such as bing.com/indexnow. It does not matter much which: participating engines forward submissions to one another, so one push reaches the network.

The protocol is deliberately about change. It is for URLs that were just created, just updated, or just removed — not for periodically re-announcing your whole site.

Which search engines actually use IndexNow?

Five: Microsoft Bing, Yandex, Seznam, Naver and Yep. Bing and Yandex were the original implementers in 2021; Seznam (the largest Czech engine), Naver (the largest Korean engine) and the privacy-focused Yep joined later. Google has tested IndexNow but has never adopted it.

How does the key file prove ownership?

You generate a key of 8 to 128 hexadecimal characters, save it as a plain text file at the root of your site named after the key itself, and the file contains nothing but the key. An engine fetches that file to confirm that whoever is submitting controls the domain.

The key location must be on the same host as the URLs you are submitting. That single rule is what prevents someone submitting URLs for a domain they do not control.

How many URLs can I submit, and how often?

The specification allows up to 10,000 URLs in a single POST, and Bing’s guidance is on the order of 10,000 URLs per day per site. That is roughly fifty times the Google Indexing API’s daily allowance, and there is no page-type restriction.

The real constraint is not volume, it is honesty about change. Submitting URLs that have not actually changed is the documented way to get your submissions deprioritised. Engines are explicit that IndexNow is a signal about new and updated content, and a site that pushes its entire sitemap every night is providing no signal at all.

What do the IndexNow response codes mean?

A 200 means the submission was accepted. A 202 also means accepted — but with key validation still pending, which is normal on your first submission. Everything else tells you something specific is wrong.

A 403 or 422 is a configuration problem, never a problem with your pages — worth separating in your head, because the fix is on your server, not in your content.

How do I actually start using IndexNow?

Three routes: your CDN or CMS may do it for you (Cloudflare offers a toggle, and Rank Math and Yoast submit on publish for WordPress), you can script the POST yourself, or you can use a tool that watches your sitemap and submits changes automatically.

If your site is on WordPress and your publishing volume is modest, the free plugin route is genuinely the right answer and you can stop reading here. Scripting it yourself is also very reasonable — it is one HTTP request.

Where a dedicated tool earns its place is when you are on a stack with no plugin (Next.js, Astro, Hugo, Framer, a static generator), when you run several sites, or when you want Google’s Indexing API covered in the same pass. That is the gap Indexa fills — $19 once, no subscription.

For the record, here is exactly what Indexa does on the IndexNow side, so you can judge whether it matches what you would build yourself: