IndexNow for WordPress: Get New and Updated Pages Indexed in Minutes

What is IndexNow?

Without IndexNow, search engines find changes by recrawling your sitemap and pages on their own schedule. On a small or new site that can take days or weeks. With IndexNow, your site sends a short message the moment you hit Publish, and the engine can crawl that exact URL straight away.

IndexNow speeds up discovery. It does not guarantee indexing or rankings. A thin or duplicate page will still be crawled and then ignored.

Which search engines support IndexNow?

Source: indexnow.org, checked 27 September 2026. A ping to one engine is shared with all participants.

The Google answer surprises people, so to be clear: IndexNow does nothing for Google. For Google, a clean XML sitemap submitted in Search Console and good internal links remain the way to get pages found quickly. The URL Inspection tool can request indexing for a single important page.

IndexNow vs XML sitemaps vs Google’s Indexing API

Use a sitemap and IndexNow together. They do different jobs and do not conflict.

Some plugins offer to push every WordPress post through Google’s Indexing API. Google’s documentation limits that API to job postings and livestream videos, so using it for ordinary content is outside its guidelines. I do not recommend it.

How to set up IndexNow in WordPress

Method 1: SEO Rank Genius (built in)

Go to SEO Rank Genius, then Indexing and Sitemaps, then Submission and Sync. Turn on Enable IndexNow and Auto Ping on Publish, then pick which post types to ping. The plugin generates and serves the key file for you, so there is nothing to upload and no account to register.

You can also paste any URL and click Submit URL, or send your recent posts in one batch after a big update. Every submission is logged with its response code, which makes problems easy to spot. It is included in every plan; see current pricing.

Method 2: Another plugin

Microsoft publishes an official IndexNow plugin for WordPress, and several SEO plugins include an IndexNow option. If you use Cloudflare, its Crawler Hints feature also sends IndexNow signals. Pick one source only. Two tools pinging the same URLs waste your quota and make the logs confusing.

Method 3: Manually, for developers

1. Generate a key of 8 to 128 characters using letters, numbers and hyphens.
2. Save it in a text file named after the key, for example YOUR_KEY.txt, containing only the key, and upload it to your site root.
3. Ping a single URL with a GET request:

https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow?url=https://example.com/new-page/&key=YOUR_KEY

Or submit up to 10,000 URLs in one POST request:

POST https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow
Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8

{
  "host": "example.com",
  "key": "YOUR_KEY",
  "keyLocation": "https://example.com/YOUR_KEY.txt",
  "urlList": [
    "https://example.com/new-page/",
    "https://example.com/updated-guide/"
  ]
}

How to check IndexNow is working

Every ping gets an HTTP response code. Your plugin log should show them; if it does not, that is a reason to switch plugins.

Source: IndexNow documentation.

For the full picture, add your site to Bing Webmaster Tools. Its IndexNow report shows the URLs Bing received and when, so you can confirm pings are arriving.

IndexNow mistakes to avoid

• Pinging unchanged pages. Only submit a URL when its content really changed. Constant pings for the same URL can get you rate limited.
• Submitting URLs that redirect or are noindexed. Ping the final, canonical URL only.
• Running two IndexNow tools. Pick the SEO plugin or the standalone plugin, not both.
• Forgetting deletions. When you remove a page, ping it too, so engines drop it faster instead of showing a dead result.
• Expecting Google to react. It will not. Keep your sitemap healthy for Google.

Where to go from here

IndexNow covers Bing and friends. For Google, make sure your XML sitemap is clean and submitted. If you are working through your whole setup, the WordPress SEO checklist covers every step in order.

Frequently asked questions