From this week, every URL you publish or update in SEMOptimiser is pushed to Bing, Yandex, Naver and Seznam via IndexNow the moment the change is saved. No sitemap ping, no waiting for a crawler to wander back. This post is what IndexNow is, why we ship it by default, and what it means (and does not mean) for Google.
What IndexNow actually is
IndexNow is an open protocol, originally proposed by Microsoft and Yandex in October 2021 and now co-maintained as a shared spec. It is a single HTTP POST that tells participating search engines "this URL just changed – come crawl it." Any endpoint that receives an IndexNow ping shares it with every other participating engine, so you only have to submit once.
The whole thing is deliberately boring. There is one endpoint, one key file at the root of your domain to prove ownership, and a JSON payload of up to 10,000 URLs per request. That is the entire protocol.
POST https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow HTTP/1.1
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8
Host: api.indexnow.org
{
"host": "semoptimiser.com",
"key": "a1b2c3d4e5f6a7b8c9d0e1f2a3b4c5d6",
"keyLocation": "https://semoptimiser.com/a1b2c3d4e5f6a7b8c9d0e1f2a3b4c5d6.txt",
"urlList": [
"https://semoptimiser.com/blog/introducing-indexnow",
"https://semoptimiser.com/products/technical-seo",
"https://semoptimiser.com/pricing"
]
}A `200` response means the URLs were accepted for processing. A `202` means accepted but the key is still being verified. Anything in the 4xx range is your problem to fix – usually the key file is missing or the host does not match.
Why it matters
The classic discovery loop – publish, wait for the sitemap to be re-fetched, wait for the crawler to schedule a visit, wait for the index to update – is measured in days. For a news post that decays in 48 hours, or a pricing page you just corrected, days is the difference between the change mattering and the change being invisible.
IndexNow collapses that loop. In our own tests, Bing indexes a fresh URL within roughly 10-90 seconds of the ping, versus 2-6 days for a URL discovered via sitemap alone. Yandex is slower but still same-hour. For any site publishing more than a few pages a week, that is a meaningful compounding advantage.
Who supports it
| Engine | Live since | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Bing | Oct 2021 | Original co-author; pings also flow to LinkedIn and DuckDuckGo (which is Bing-powered). |
| Yandex | Oct 2021 | Original co-author. |
| Seznam | 2022 | Czech search engine; roughly 25% share in .cz. |
| Naver | 2022 | Korean market leader. |
| – | Ran a formal test in late 2023 and 2024, has not committed. Do not plan around it. |
How SEMOptimiser uses it
When you save a change to a page tracked in SEMOptimiser – a metadata update, a fresh blog post, a redirect map – we now automatically:
- Generate an IndexNow key on first use and host it at your domain root.
- Batch changed URLs into 30-second submission windows so we do not spam the endpoint on rapid edits.
- POST the batch to api.indexnow.org.
- Store the response code and timestamp against the URL so you can see when the last successful ping was.
- Retry with exponential backoff on 5xx errors, up to 3 attempts.
You can see the submission log and toggle the behaviour per project in dashboard settings. The full technical detail – including how we handle key rotation and how it fits with the rest of the crawl toolkit – lives on the Technical SEO product page.
What to do next
If you are already on SEMOptimiser, IndexNow is on by default for new projects from this release. Open dashboard settings and confirm the key file is live at your domain root (we do this for you on hosted domains; DIY for self-hosted). If you are not on SEMOptimiser and want to roll your own, the payload above is literally all you need – a single POST from your CMS publish hook will do it. And if you were waiting for Google before bothering: do not. Bing is the world's second-largest search engine, and the compounding indexing lead is worth it on its own.