IndexNow + Bing Webmaster

Source & Credit

Reminder shared by Manoj Ahirwar (@manoj_ahi):

“Please submit your sitemap to bing webmaster and indexnow. You will thank me later.”

Original post (with a dashboard screenshot where Bing organic shows real traffic alongside Google, ChatGPT referrals, etc.): x.com/i/status/2077634498783494584

Point of the tweet: Bing still drives meaningful organic traffic for some sites — so getting content indexed there faster is worth a few minutes of setup. Do both sitemap submission and IndexNow.

What Is IndexNow?

IndexNow is an open, free protocol (launched ~2021 by Microsoft Bing and Yandex) that lets you instantly notify participating search engines when you publish, update, or delete a page.

Instead of waiting days or weeks for crawlers to stumble on changes, you actively “ping” them. On supported engines, pages can show up in hours rather than days.

Supported engines (as of mid-2026)

• Microsoft Bing (primary use case for most English sites)
• Yandex
• Naver (South Korea)
• Seznam.cz (Czech Republic)
• Yep

Google does not support IndexNow (they have experimented; not adopted as of this writing). For Google you still use sitemaps + Google Search Console.

One submission can notify multiple engines that share the protocol — you don’t have to ping each engine separately for every URL.

Why People Care Right Now

• Bing is real traffic for some dashboards (the tweet’s screenshot) — not “Google only or nothing.”
• AI search adjacency — Bing has been relevant to how some AI products surface web results; faster Bing discovery can help visibility beyond classic SERPs.
• High-frequency sites — blogs, news, e-commerce (price/stock changes), docs — benefit most from change pings.
• Low effort / free — complements sitemaps; does not replace quality content, links, or technical SEO.

It pairs well with ongoing SEO work like backlink frameworks, AI link-building workflows, and rank data via DataForSEO.

Do Both: Sitemap + IndexNow

How IndexNow Works

1. Generate a free API key — via Bing Webmaster Tools or an IndexNow-compatible tool.
2. Host the key file at your site root (or a path you declare), e.g. https://yoursite.com/yourkey123.txt (file body is usually just the key string).
3. Ping on change — send a GET or POST to the IndexNow endpoint when you publish or update a page.

Single URL example

https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow?url=https://yoursite.com/new-post&key=yourkey123&keyLocation=https://yoursite.com/yourkey123.txt

You can also bulk-submit (up to ~10,000 URLs) in one POST body — useful after a large site rebuild or migration.

Platforms with built-in support

• WordPress plugins (common first step)
• Shopify (native options)
• Cloudflare Crawler Hints (plan-dependent)
• Wix and other website builders
• Custom stacks (Astro, Flask, Netlify build hooks, etc.) — a few lines of code or a post-deploy script

Setup Checklist (Any Site)

Astro / Static Site Sketch

For Astro/Netlify-style sites (including this blog), a simple post-build or post-deploy step can POST changed URLs. Conceptually:

# After deploy, ping a new or updated page
curl -G "https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow" \
  --data-urlencode "url=https://mikesblogdesign.com/your-new-page/" \
  --data-urlencode "key=YOUR_KEY" \
  --data-urlencode "keyLocation=https://mikesblogdesign.com/YOUR_KEY.txt"

Bulk JSON POST shape (simplified):

POST https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow
Content-Type: application/json

{
  "host": "mikesblogdesign.com",
  "key": "YOUR_KEY",
  "keyLocation": "https://mikesblogdesign.com/YOUR_KEY.txt",
  "urlList": [
    "https://mikesblogdesign.com/page-a/",
    "https://mikesblogdesign.com/page-b/"
  ]
}

Production tip: only submit URLs you actually changed; respect rate limits; don’t spam the endpoint on every local preview. Official docs: indexnow.org · Bing: Bing Webmaster Tools.

Should You Care?

Yes, if any of these are true:

• You already see Bing (or Yandex/Naver) in analytics
• You publish or update content often (blogs, product pages, event pages like CBS, knowledge bases)
• You run multiple domains and want a cheap, shared hygiene step after deploy

No silver bullet: IndexNow does not create rankings by itself. It speeds eligibility to be considered on supported engines. Content, links, and UX still decide who ranks.

For portfolio sites (mikesblog, product brands, headless domains, etc.), this is classic low-effort, high-upside internet marketing infrastructure — same spirit as keeping OG images solid so shared links convert when they do get traffic.

Related Guides

Prompted by @manoj_ahi — View the original post on X → · Protocol: indexnow.org