IndexNow
IndexNow is a ping a website sends to tell search engines that a page was added, changed or deleted, instead of waiting for crawlers to notice. The site proves it owns the domain with a key file, then sends the addresses. Bing, Yandex, Naver, Seznam.cz, Yep and Amazon take part, and a ping to one is shared with the others.
Source: IndexNow.org, home page and FAQ, checked October 29, 2026
What IndexNow means for your business
Google isn't on IndexNow's list of search engines that take part, so we wouldn't count on it for Google, and we'd lean on a sitemap and links between your pages there. IndexNow's own FAQ also says a ping doesn't guarantee a page gets indexed. Each search engine still decides whether to crawl it, and every address you send counts toward your site's crawl quota.
We use it on this site. When we publish a blog post, or a deploy changes a page, the site pings IndexNow with only the addresses that changed. We'd send pages that really changed, not the whole site every time.
You may not have to build anything. IndexNow's FAQ lists WordPress, Shopify, Wix, GoDaddy and others with built-in support or plugins, and says Cloudflare offers it too. We'd check your platform's settings first. If new pages take a long time to show up in Bing and you've never set up a sitemap or IndexNow, getting new pages found sooner is part of the setup we'd do.
Last reviewed October 29, 2026. All terms
How AI answers it today
On October 29, 2026, Google's AI Overview cited IndexNow's site, Bing, Wikipedia and SEO plugin blogs, and said it cuts indexing to minutes, which IndexNow's FAQ doesn't promise. ChatGPT cited IndexNow's FAQ and Yoast and noted Google doesn't take part. Neither named Amazon.
Our run through ChatGPT and Google's AI Overview, October 29, 2026. A sample, not what every buyer sees.
Related terms in crawlers and technical access
Find out where your brand stands.
Tell us what you're trying to figure out. We'll get back to you within one business day with a time to talk.