IndexNow
Waiting to be re-crawled is not a plan.
You fix something, deploy it, and then wait for the world to notice — usually with no idea how long that will take. IndexNow lets you notify participating engines that a URL has changed, which is a better position than silence.
No card required.
- Submit changed URLs
- Submission history
- Participating engines only
The gap it addresses
The interval between shipping and knowing.
Between a fix going live and evidence of it appearing, there is a period where you have done the work and cannot yet see anything. Notifying participating engines gives that period a chance to be shorter.
- 01
Change ships
The fix is live on the site.
- 02
Submit the URL
Participating engines are notified that this page is different.
- 03
Discovery may follow
Engines decide for themselves whether and when to re-crawl.
- 04
Evidence returns
Your next check has something new to look at.
Being straight about this
Submitting a URL is telling someone. It is not making them act.
IndexNow is a notification protocol. What happens after a submission is entirely the receiving engine's decision, and no tool can promise otherwise. Anything marketed as guaranteed indexing is selling you something that does not exist.
What submission does
- Notifies participating engines that a URL has changed
- Records what was submitted and when
- Returns the status of each submission
- Gives discovery an opportunity to happen sooner
What it cannot promise
- That a page will be crawled
- That a page will be indexed
- Any change in ranking
- Any change in how AI systems reference you
Not every engine participates in IndexNow, and participation is theirs to determine, not ours.
Using it well
Submit when something genuinely changed.
The protocol relies on submissions meaning something. Treating it as a button to press hopefully undermines that for everyone, including you.
-
Fix first, then submit
Notifying an engine about a page whose problem is still present just invites it to confirm the problem.
-
Once per real change
Repeatedly submitting an unchanged URL adds nothing and signals nothing.
-
Prioritise what matters
Pages where the change is substantive are worth the notification. Trivial edits are not.
What IndexNow connects to
Submission sits at the end of the work and just before verification.
Close the gap after you ship.
Submit what changed and keep a record of when you did.
Shipping changes frequently? Talk to us