IndexNow explained: tell Bing (and Copilot) the moment you publish
IndexNow lets you ping participating search engines when a page changes. How it works, what it won't do, and how to set it up in ten minutes.
Search engines normally find changes by recrawling, which can take days or weeks. IndexNow is an open protocol that lets you tell them straight away: "this URL was added, changed or deleted."
Who supports it
The IndexNow FAQ lists participating endpoints for Bing, Amazon, Naver, Seznam.cz, Yandex and Yep, and says a submission to one is shared with all of them. Google isn't on that list, so keep using your sitemap and Search Console for Google.
Why it matters for AI search: Bing's webmaster guidelines say IndexNow notifications help Bing refresh its index and reduce outdated or incorrect URL references in Copilot responses and grounding results.
How it works
- Generate a key of 8–128 characters (letters, numbers, dashes).
- Host it as a plain text file at
https://yourdomain.com/<key>.txt, containing only the key. - POST your changed URLs (up to 10,000 per request) to an endpoint such as
https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow.
A 200 means accepted. A 202 on your first request means the key is still being verified. A 422 usually means the URLs don't match the host or the key file can't be found.
What it won't do
- It doesn't guarantee indexing. The FAQ is clear that each engine still decides what to crawl and index.
- It isn't a replacement for a sitemap. Use the sitemap for the full inventory and IndexNow for changes. Bing recommends both, with accurate
lastmoddates. - It's not for resubmitting everything daily. Submit when content actually changes; the FAQ suggests waiting at least 5 minutes before resubmitting the same URL.
Check your platform first
WordPress, Shopify, Wix, Duda and others support IndexNow natively or through SEO plugins, and Cloudflare offers a built-in integration. If you're on one of those, switch it on and you're done.
If not, our IndexNow Submitter loads URLs from your sitemap, generates a key, checks the key file is live and submits for you.
Sources
How to show up in each AI assistant
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