TL;DR: What is IndexNow and how does it help with AI search?
IndexNow is a free, open protocol that tells search engines about changes to your website the moment they happen, rather than waiting for them to crawl and discover the update on their own schedule. It was developed by Microsoft Bing and Yandex in 2021 and is now supported by five search engines: Bing, Yandex, Seznam, Naver, and Yep. Google isn’t part of it. Because Bing powers ChatGPT Search and Microsoft Copilot, getting your content into Bing quickly also gives it a faster route into AI search results.
What is IndexNow?
IndexNow is an open protocol that allows website owners to notify search engines directly whenever content on their site is added, updated, or deleted. Rather than waiting for a search engine’s crawler to visit your site and discover the change on its own, IndexNow sends a ping that notifies the search engines that “this page has changed, so come and look at it now”.
The protocol was launched in October 2021 by Microsoft Bing and Yandex, Russia’s main search engine. Seznam, the leading Czech search engine, joined shortly after. Naver, South Korea’s largest search platform, added support in July 2023 and Yep from Singapore has joined.
One submission to any of the participating engines is automatically shared across all of them, so you don’t need to notify each one separately.
Google chose not to participate. The company maintains its own crawling infrastructure and cited its crawling efficiency when declining to join.
IndexNow accelerates visibility across all five participating engines but won’t have any effect on your indexing in Google.
Why is IndexNow so helpful for marketers?
If you’ve ever published a piece of content and had to wait weeks to see it show up in search, you’ll understand the frustration.
Google crawls your site on its own schedule, and for newer or smaller domains that schedule can be slow.
Even though you can request indexing of individual pages manually in Google Search Console (GSC), the business website I manage had an unexplained issue where Google stopped allowing us to manually submit URLs in Search Console for over 6 months. This caused us a lot of headaches, where content would take weeks to even show up in the index, let alone rank. This issue was unlikely to be a penalty, as we’d barely submitted any new indexing requests or published more than a blog post or so a week and always stay well within Google’s publishing guidelines.
The IndexNow protocol solves this problem for a growing group of search engines, including Bing, and that has a direct knock-on effect for AI search visibility.
Why IndexNow can help with AI search
AI platforms value freshness, and fast indexing can help AI engines pick up your context quicker. This is especially important if you’re publishing content on fast moving topics and you want to show up in AI overviews etc. without having to wait days for indexing.
The connection to AI search comes down to which search engines power which AI tools.
ChatGPT and Microsoft Copilot both rely heavily on Bing’s index. Research published by Seer Interactive in February 2025, analysing over 500 ChatGPT citations, found that 87% matched Bing’s top search results. If your content is in Bing’s index quickly, it has a faster potential route into the pool of content those AI tools draw from when generating answers.
For a small or newly launched site, this can make a big difference. Google may take weeks to index a new article, but with IndexNow, Bing can pick it up and serve it to readers within hours.
I’ve seen this play out twice in my own experience. The first time, I updated an article about a newly announced software product and the next day it was ranking in Bing for the relevant search query. IndexNow didn’t make it rank higher than it would have eventually, but it got there much faster than it would have done through normal crawling.
On another occasion, I published a new article and searched for its exact title within the hour. It was already indexed and appearing in Bing. That was a direct title search, so it wasn’t impressive that it was in top spot, but it did confirm the content had been picked up and indexed almost immediately after publishing.
Neither of those outcomes is guaranteed. But for a small team trying to get fresh content visible quickly, the speed of IndexNow is really useful.
How to set up IndexNow
There are a few main routes depending on how your site is built. Given this blog is all about ease and simplicity for marketers with minimal resources, I’d recommend a plugin if you’re using WordPress as your CMS.
WordPress Plugins
Free IndexNow Plugin:
Microsoft offers a free dedicated IndexNow plugin in the WordPress plugin directory. Search for “IndexNow” and find the plugin listed as Microsoft Bing as its publisher.
Install it and activate it. The plugin automatically generates an API key, hosts the required verification file on your site, and submits URLs to all participating search engines whenever you publish or update content. No manual configuration is needed once it’s active and you can manually add URLs if you want to.
This is the simplest free option and the one worth starting with if you’re not already using a paid SEO plugin.
Caveat: Some of the reviews of this plugin are negative. I haven’t had any bad experiences with it myself and I use it for this site.
WordPress: via your SEO plugin
If you’re already using Yoast SEO premium, IndexNow support is built into it. In the Rank Math plugin, it’s available in the free version. Check your plugin settings to confirm it’s enabled. If it is, no further setup is needed.
N.b. IndexNow is not included in Yoast SEO free. If you’re on the free plan and don’t want to upgrade, use the dedicated Microsoft plugin above instead.
Manual setup (any site)
To be honest, as a non technical person – manual setup is going to be an unnecessary headache if you’re short on time. Most of us marketers don’t have time to spare, so you might want to opt for the ease of a plugin instead. But if you’re not using WordPress of a a CMS with a suitable plugin, you might find manual setu the best bet. The process has three steps, which involves generating an API key, creating a plain text file, named after your API key and pasting your key as the only content inside the file, and upload it to the root directory of your website. This enables you to submit URLs to IndexNow by sending a simple API request to api.indexnow.org/indexnow with your URL and key as parameters. Full documentation is at indexnow.org. I’ve never done it myself, simply as it was unnecessary with easier options available.
Cloudflare and Wix both offer native IndexNow integration if you use either of those platforms.
What IndexNow won’t do
IndexNow gets your content indexed faster. Ranking is determined by the quality, relevance, and authority of your content once it is indexed. A page that would rank poorly through normal crawling will rank just as poorly after IndexNow discovers it. The protocol is about speed of discovery, not quality of ranking.
When I set marketingstuff.co.uk up with IndexNow, content didn’t rank as it was a new domain and it takes time to build authority. IndexNow is just about speeding up the process.
For a new domain with limited authority, the realistic expectation is faster indexing in Bing and the other participating engines, with a modest knock-on effect for AI search visibility over time. It’s not a significant change on its own, but combined with other small improvements to how your content is structured and distributed, it contributes to building visibility in the right direction.
Google indexing is handled separately via Google Search. If Google is your primary source of organic traffic, keep your Google Search Console maintained and continue to manually request indexing of new pages if your site doesn’t get crawled frequently. IndexNow is just a useful addition in that case to help with your Bing traffic etc., but it doesn’t affect Google.
FAQs
What search engines support IndexNow?
As of 2024, five search engines fully support IndexNow: Microsoft Bing, Yandex, Seznam (Czech Republic), Naver (South Korea), and Yep (Singapore). Google hasn’t joined the protocol. A submission to any one of these engines is automatically shared with the others. One integration covers all five.
Does IndexNow help with Google search?
No, not directly. Google does not participate in IndexNow and maintains its own separate crawling infrastructure. To request faster indexing in Google, use the URL inspection tool in Google Search Console and manually requesr indexing if necessary. IndexNow and Google Search Console complement each other, but it’s worth using both.
Does IndexNow improve your search rankings?
No. IndexNow speeds up how quickly your content is discovered and indexed by participating search engines. It has no influence on where that content ranks once it is indexed. Ranking is determined by the quality, relevance, and authority of your content, not by how quickly it was submitted.
Is IndexNow free?
Yes. The IndexNow protocol is free and open source. There is no cost to implement it directly. If you use a plugin or tool that includes IndexNow support (such as Yoast SEO premium), the cost of that tool applies. The protocol itself is free and a free plugin from Bing Webmaster Tools exists.
How does IndexNow connect to AI search?
ChatGPT Search and Microsoft Copilot draw heavily from Bing’s index. Getting your content indexed in Bing quickly via IndexNow gives it a faster potential route into the content pool those AI tools draw from when generating answers. It doesn’t guarantee your content will be cited, but it removes one of the delays that can slow down AI search visibility for newer or smaller sites.
How long does it take to set up IndexNow?
For WordPress users with the free Microsoft IndexNow plugin, setup takes around 15 to 30 minutes. If you’re on Yoast SEO premium or Rank Math, it may already be active with no setup needed beyond checking your plugin settings. Manual setup on a website site takes longer and depends on your technical setup, but the process is well documented at indexnow.org.