How to Submit URLs to IndexNow (Step by Step, Free)

IndexNow lets you tell Bing, Yandex and other search engines about new or updated pages the moment you publish them. Setting it up takes about five minutes, and you only do the setup once. Here's the whole process. (New to IndexNow? Start with what IndexNow is and how it works.)

What you'll need

• Access to upload a file to the root of your website (via your host's file manager, FTP, or your site builder).
• A list of URLs you want search engines to know about — or your sitemap.

Step 1: Create your IndexNow key

A key is a random string that proves you own the site. It must be 8 to 128 characters long and can contain letters, numbers and dashes.

Open the free Pixlory IndexNow Submitter, enter your domain, and a secure key is generated for you automatically. Click New if you want a different one.

Keep this key. You'll reuse the same key for every future submission.

Step 2: Upload the key file

Create a plain text file:

• File name: your key followed by .txt — for example c21a13c9ec1202a8e01d5284b2bb2606.txt
• Contents: only the key itself, with nothing else

The Download key file button in the submitter creates this file for you. Upload it to the root of your site so it opens at:

https://example.com/c21a13c9ec1202a8e01d5284b2bb2606.txt

Open that address in your browser to make sure it shows the key. Then click Check key file in the submitter, which confirms the file is reachable and correct.

Can't upload to the root? You can host the key file in a subfolder instead. Use the Key file is somewhere else? option and enter its full URL. Note that a key in a subfolder only covers URLs inside that folder.

On WordPress? Many SEO plugins and Bing's IndexNow plugin can host the key for you. Copy the key from the plugin's settings and paste it into the submitter.

Step 3: Add your URLs

You can either:

• Paste URLs, one per line, or
• Click Load from sitemap to pull URLs from https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml (sitemap index files work too).

Every URL must be on the same domain as your key — the tool flags any that aren't and removes duplicates automatically.

Tip: after the first full submission, only submit pages that are new, updated or deleted. Resubmitting thousands of unchanged pages every day doesn't help and may be treated as spam.

Step 4: Submit

Click Submit and you'll see the response from IndexNow straight away. You can send up to 10,000 URLs in one submission.

What the IndexNow responses mean

Step 5: Check the results in Bing Webmaster Tools

Add your site to Bing Webmaster Tools (it's free, and you can import your site from Google Search Console in a few clicks). Its IndexNow section shows the URLs you've submitted, and the URL Inspection tool shows whether a page has been indexed.

Remember: submitting a URL makes search engines aware of it quickly, but indexing is never guaranteed. Pages still need to be useful, unique and accessible to crawlers.

Common problems

"Key file not found (404)" — the file is in the wrong folder, or the name doesn't match the key exactly. File names are case-sensitive on most servers.

"The file doesn't contain exactly the key" — remove extra spaces, line breaks, or HTML. The file should contain the key and nothing else.

The key file redirects — some hosts redirect http to https or add www. Make sure you enter the domain exactly as your site uses it, e.g. www.example.com if your pages live on www.

Google isn't picking up my pages — Google doesn't use IndexNow. Submit your sitemap in Google Search Console and use URL Inspection to request indexing of important pages.

A simple routine that works

1. Publish or update a page.
2. Submit its URL to IndexNow.
3. Add it to your sitemap (most sites do this automatically).
4. For your most important pages, also request indexing in Google Search Console.

Ready? Open the free Pixlory IndexNow Submitter and submit your first URLs in under a minute.