---
title: "IndexNow"
slug: "indexnow"
category: "glossary"
tags: ["glossary", "seo", "indexnow", "indexing", "push-protocol"]
status: "stable"
last_updated: 2026-05-14
summary: "IndexNow is an open push protocol for notifying search engines (Bing, Yandex, Seznam, Naver) instantly when a URL is created, updated, or deleted."
related:
  [
    "[[seo/indexnow]]",
    "[[glossary/crawl-budget]]",
    "[[seo/crawl-budget]]",
    "[[seo/technical]]",
    "[[glossary/canonical-url]]",
    "[[glossary/llms-txt]]",
  ]
---

## Overview

This page is the atomic definition. The deep-dive lives at [[seo/indexnow]].

## Definition

IndexNow is an open push protocol that lets sites notify participating search engines the instant a URL is created, updated, or deleted. The site holds a verification key (a hexadecimal string) hosted at a known path, then POSTs JSON or hits a single-URL GET endpoint to one participating engine, which fanouts the notification to others. Bing, Yandex, Seznam, and Naver participate; Google does not. The protocol was launched in 2021 by Microsoft and Yandex.

## When it applies

Use IndexNow on any site that publishes or updates frequently and wants faster discovery on participating engines. It is most useful for news, ecommerce, and high-velocity blogs.

## Example

A CMS POSTs to `https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow` with the host, key, and a list of updated URLs after each publish. Bing recrawls the URL within minutes instead of waiting for the next scheduled fetch.

## Related concepts

- [[seo/indexnow]] - the deep-dive with payload format and key hosting rules.
- [[glossary/crawl-budget]] - IndexNow reduces wasted recrawl spend.
- [[seo/technical]] - the technical SEO checklist that includes IndexNow.
- [[glossary/canonical-url]] - submit canonical URLs to IndexNow, not parameterized variants.
- [[glossary/llms-txt]] - the parallel agent-discovery file, served alongside.

## Citing this term

> See [[glossary/indexnow|IndexNow]] (llmbestpractices.com/glossary/indexnow).

## Related

- [[seo/indexnow]]
- [[seo/crawl-budget]]
- [[seo/technical]]
- [[glossary/crawl-budget]]
- [[glossary/canonical-url]]