IndexNow
Tell search engines and AI crawlers about new or updated URLs immediately instead of waiting for them to discover changes on their own.
Overview
IndexNow is an open protocol that lets you push a list of URLs to search engines and AI crawlers so they re-crawl them right away. Instead of waiting for the next organic crawl (which can take days or weeks), you signal "this URL changed, please re-index" and participating engines respond within minutes to hours.
AEO Optima integrates with IndexNow so you can:
- Submit URLs manually from the Indexation page
- Submit them programmatically via webhooks or connectors
- Track submission history and verify delivery
When to use IndexNow
Use IndexNow whenever you publish or meaningfully change a URL that you want AI engines to see quickly. Common triggers:
- You ship a new landing page, blog post, or documentation page
- You update product specs, pricing, or availability
- You fix an error or correct an outdated fact (see Hallucination Corrections)
- You apply a Content Optimization suggestion and want to measure impact quickly
Note: IndexNow speeds up crawling, not ranking. An update that isn't actually better content won't improve your visibility just because it was re-crawled faster.
Setting up IndexNow
Open IndexNow from the sidebar.
- Generate your API key — the platform generates a long random string unique to your project
- Publish the key file to your website's root:
https://yourdomain.com/{key}.txtwith the key as its only content - Verify — click Verify key file on the Indexation page. The platform fetches the URL and confirms the key matches.
- Once verified, the page is ready to accept URL submissions
Most hosts let you publish a plain text file in the root — Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, WordPress all support this.
Submitting URLs
Once verified, you can submit URLs several ways:
Manual submission
- Paste one URL per line into the submission box
- Click Submit
- The platform forwards the list to participating engines and records the result
Automated submission
- Via webhook — when a Webhook fires (e.g.,
content.updated), chain it to an IndexNow submission - Via the Shopify connector — when a product page changes, the platform can auto-submit
- Via the API — your CI/CD pipeline can POST directly to the IndexNow endpoint on publish
Submission history
The Indexation page shows a table of every submission with:
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Submitted at | When the batch was sent |
| URLs | How many URLs were in the batch |
| Engines | Which engines accepted the submission |
| Status | Accepted / rejected / partial |
| Response | The raw response from each engine (for debugging) |
Which engines accept IndexNow
The IndexNow protocol is supported by Microsoft Bing, Yandex, Seznam, and others. Major AI engines that index from those sources pick up the changes indirectly. Google does not accept IndexNow directly — use Google Search Console instead, which has its own URL submission API.
Best practices
- Batch related changes. Submitting 10 URLs in one batch is more efficient than 10 individual submissions.
- Don't spam. Re-submitting the same URL repeatedly with no actual content change can get your key rate-limited.
- Submit on publish, not on save. Wire IndexNow into your CMS webhook for the "published" event, not "draft saved."
- Monitor the response column. A 4xx response usually means your key file is missing or the URL is malformed. Fix and re-submit.