What is IndexNow?

IndexNow is a ping. Instead of waiting for a crawler to find a change, your site sends a short message that says "this URL changed". The project calls it "an easy way for websites owners to instantly inform search engines" about changes (IndexNow.org, read 1 November 2026). Bing calls it "a free, open-source protocol" (Microsoft Bing).

One ping reaches every engine that takes part. The engines agree that "submitted URLs will be automatically shared with all other participating search engines" (IndexNow documentation).

Which search engines use IndexNow?

The IndexNow home page lists Microsoft Bing, Naver, Seznam.cz, Yandex and Yep. The site's machine-readable list also includes Amazonbot and the Internet Archive (searchengines.json), and the FAQ names Amazon too. So the lists on the same site differ a little. Google is on none of them.

Why does IndexNow matter for B2B SaaS?

Bing's index sits behind Microsoft's AI answers. Bing Webmaster Tools reports citations across Microsoft Copilot, AI-generated summaries in Bing and select partner integrations (Bing Webmaster Blog). Bing has also written that in AI answers, "Freshness failure carries a categorically different cost" (Bing Search Blog).

That matters when you change a price, a plan limit or a feature. A fast recrawl lowers the chance that an answer quotes the old version. See content freshness.

Many SEO guides say ChatGPT search also uses Bing. We could not confirm that on an OpenAI page, so treat it as unconfirmed (see ChatGPT search).

How does IndexNow work?

  1. Create a key of 8 to 128 characters (letters, numbers and dashes).
  2. Host it as a UTF-8 text file named after the key, such as `your-key.txt`, at the root of your site.
  3. When a page changes, send a GET request to `https://<searchengine>/indexnow?url=...&key=...`, or POST a JSON list. You can send "up to 10,000 URLs per post."
  4. Read the answer: 200 means submitted, 202 means received with the key check pending, 403 means the key is invalid, 422 means the URLs do not belong to your host, 429 means too many requests.
  5. Repeat "whenever content is added, updated, or removed".

Steps 1 to 4 come from the IndexNow documentation; step 5 from the IndexNow FAQ. Most sites automate this in the deploy step or the CMS.

Does IndexNow guarantee indexing?

No. The FAQ says it plainly: "Submitting a URL does not guarantee immediate indexing." It also says to keep your sitemap: "Using both IndexNow and sitemaps improves content visibility and ensures broader search engine coverage" (IndexNow FAQ).

What does that look like? (hypothetical example)

A hypothetical example: a project management tool changes its free plan on Monday. Its deploy script pings IndexNow for the pricing page and three comparison pages. Bing and the other engines on the list are told about the change at deploy time, not whenever their crawler next visits. Google still finds the change through its normal crawl and the sitemap.

IndexNow vs sitemaps vs Bing Webmaster Tools

  • A sitemap is the full list of your URLs. Engines read it on their own schedule.
  • IndexNow is a push for the URLs that just changed.
  • Bing Webmaster Tools is Microsoft's dashboard, where you see how Bing crawls, indexes and cites your site.

For how indexing in Google and Bing feeds AI answers, see our guide to LLM SEO.