Questions & answers

What does Index-now actually do?

We watch your website for new and changed pages, and tell search engines about them using the IndexNow protocol. You add your domain, install one small verification file, and from then on it runs by itself — discovering your URLs, working out what changed, and submitting only those.

How quickly will my pages get crawled?

Search engines that use IndexNow typically pick up submitted URLs within minutes to a few hours, rather than the days or weeks a normal crawl cycle can take. Submission is a notification, not a guarantee — the engine still decides whether to index a page — but the discovery delay disappears.

Does this work with Google?

No. Google does not currently participate in IndexNow. It reaches Bing, Yandex, Seznam.cz, Naver, Yep, Amazon. Bing matters more than people assume: it feeds DuckDuckGo, Yahoo and several AI assistants, so being fresh in Bing increasingly affects AI answers as well as search results.

Do I have to upload a file myself?

Only if you want to. The protocol requires a key file on your own host — a file on our servers would prove nothing, which is the point of the check. But you choose how it gets there: give us a scoped Cloudflare API token or your FTP details and we install it for you, or download the file and upload it yourself with guides for 18 platforms.

Is it safe to give you my Cloudflare token or FTP password?

We use them for one operation and never store them — not in our database, not in our logs. Nothing is kept to "repair" things later; if the key file ever disappears you simply re-run the installer. For Cloudflare we ask for a custom token scoped to three permissions, not your account password. If you would rather not share anything, upload the file yourself — that route is fully supported.

Will this improve my rankings?

Not directly, and be sceptical of anyone who says otherwise. IndexNow affects how quickly your content is discovered, not how it ranks once found. If a page is thin, duplicated or blocked by robots.txt, faster discovery changes nothing.

What if my site does not have a sitemap?

We look for one in robots.txt and at the usual locations first. If there genuinely is not one, you can paste URLs in manually or call our instant ping API from your CMS. Most modern platforms generate a sitemap automatically, so this is rarer than you would think.

How is this different from Bing Webmaster Tools?

Bing Webmaster Tools lets you submit URLs by hand, a few at a time, for Bing only. This runs automatically, works out what changed for you, covers every IndexNow engine at once, and keeps a log. If you are happy pasting URLs manually every time you publish, you do not need us.

How long does setup take?

Usually two to five minutes. Adding the domain and generating the key is instant; the only variable is how quickly you can get the key file onto your site. If you let us install it via Cloudflare or FTP, it is typically under a minute.

Do I need technical knowledge?

Not if you use the automated installer. If you upload the file yourself you need to know how to put a file in your website's root folder — or follow one of our platform guides, which are written for the actual admin screens rather than in jargon.

Can I try it before paying?

Yes. Creating an account, adding a domain and verifying your key file are all free. You are only asked to pay once verification has passed, so you know the setup works before any money changes hands.

What kind of sites benefit most?

Anything that changes regularly — blogs, news sites, shops with changing stock and prices, job boards, listings sites, documentation. If your site is five static pages that change once a year, be honest with yourself: the mechanism works, but there is very little for it to do.

What is IndexNow?

An open protocol, launched by Microsoft and Yandex in 2021, that lets a website tell participating search engines "this URL just changed" instead of waiting for a crawler to notice. There is no account and no approval — you prove you control the domain by hosting a key file, then you can submit.

Is IndexNow free?

The protocol itself is completely free and open — there is no registration, no API quota to buy and no approval process. What costs money is having someone build and maintain the automation around it, which is what we charge for.

Which search engines actually use it?

Bing, Yandex, Seznam.cz, Naver, Yep, Amazon. Submitting once to the shared endpoint at api.indexnow.org forwards your URLs to all of them.

Why is Google not included?

Google ran a trial and has said it is evaluating the protocol, but it does not currently participate. Anyone selling IndexNow as a way to rank on Google faster is overselling it.

How many URLs can I submit at once?

The protocol caps a single request at 10,000 URLs; more than that is rejected with HTTP 422. We chunk automatically, so a site with 80,000 pages is handled without you thinking about it.

What does a 202 response mean? Is that bad?

No, it is a good response. 202 means the submission was accepted but the engine has not yet validated your key file. It is completely normal on early submissions and turns into 200 once the key has been checked.

What does a 403 mean?

The engine fetched your key file and was not satisfied — usually it has been deleted, its contents no longer match, it is behind a login, or it is on a different host than the URLs you submitted.

What does a 422 mean?

Two things share this code: either your URL list contains a URL on a different host than the one your key covers, or you sent more than 10,000 URLs in one request. The first is far more common — one stray URL rejects the entire batch.

What does a 429 mean?

You are being rate limited. The engines do not publish exact thresholds. It almost always means unchanged URLs are being resubmitted too often — which is one of the main reasons to automate this properly rather than firing off every URL on every save.

Can I use the same key on several domains?

You can reuse the same key string, but each host needs its own copy of the key file at its own root. The key alone proves nothing — it is the file on that specific host that does.

Does the key file location matter?

Very much. The folder the key file sits in scopes what you can submit: a key at example.com/catalog/key.txt authorises only URLs starting example.com/catalog/. Only a key at your site root covers your whole site.

What happens if I delete the key file?

Submissions start failing, usually with HTTP 403 or 422, because the engines re-check the file. Treat it as permanent — like robots.txt. We check yours weekly and email you the moment it disappears.

Can submitting too often get me penalised?

You will not get a ranking penalty, but you can get rate limited with HTTP 429, and repeatedly submitting unchanged URLs is explicitly discouraged. The guidance is to leave at least five minutes between updates to the same URL.

Does IndexNow guarantee indexing?

No. It guarantees the engine is told. Whether the page gets indexed depends entirely on the engine's own judgement about the page and the site.

Is IndexNow a ranking factor?

No. Microsoft has been explicit that it is not. It shortens discovery, nothing more.

What are the key format rules?

Between 8 and 128 characters, using only lowercase letters, uppercase letters, digits and hyphens. We generate a 32-character hexadecimal key, which is always valid.

Can I submit URLs for a subdomain?

Yes, but a subdomain is a separate host under the protocol. blog.example.com needs its own key file at its own root, and counts as its own domain with us.

Does it work over HTTP as well as HTTPS?

Technically yes, but you should be on HTTPS regardless — it has been a baseline expectation for years and some engines treat HTTP sites less favourably.

Why can't you host the key file for me?

Because the protocol will not allow it. IndexNow verifies ownership by requiring the key file on the same host as the URLs being submitted. A file on our servers proves nothing about your site — that is precisely the point of the check.

What are my options for installing the key file?

Two. Let us do it — connect a scoped Cloudflare API token or your FTP/SFTP details and we put the file in place. Or download it and upload it yourself, using our platform guides.

What Cloudflare permissions do you need?

Exactly three, on a custom token: Workers Scripts (Edit), Workers Routes (Edit) and Zone (Read). Nothing else. That is enough to deploy a small Worker that serves your key file at your site root.

What does the Cloudflare Worker actually do?

It answers requests for your key file at the edge and passes everything else straight through to your site unchanged. Your origin server is not modified in any way.

Do you keep my FTP password?

No. It is used for the single upload and then discarded — never written to the database, the cache or the logs. If the file is later removed, you re-run the installer rather than us holding your password indefinitely.

What if I don't know my web root?

Leave the path blank and we will try the usual locations in turn: public_html, httpdocs, www, htdocs, web and public. If none work we will tell you which we tried so you can check with your host.

Should I choose www or non-www?

Whichever your pages actually resolve to — the one your sitemap lists. IndexNow treats example.com and www.example.com as two separate sites, so verifying the wrong one means every submission is rejected.

How do I know which version my site uses?

Type your domain without www into a browser and see what the address bar settles on after any redirect. That is your canonical host.

Can I change the key later?

Yes, but you will need to install the new key file before submissions resume. There is rarely a reason to.

How long does verification take?

Instant if the file is already live. If it is not, we keep checking in the background for about half an hour and email you when it passes, so you can upload it in your own time.

Can I use a key file in a subfolder?

You can, but it limits you: a key in a subfolder only authorises URLs under that subfolder. For whole-site coverage the file must be at your root.

Does the file need to stay there forever?

Yes. Search engines re-check it whenever you submit. Treat it as permanent site furniture, like robots.txt.

Will a site redesign break it?

It can, if the new build does not include the file. That is exactly why we re-check weekly and email you if it disappears — this is the most common way IndexNow setups die silently.

Can I install it on a staging site first?

You can, but staging sites are usually behind a password or a noindex, so verification will fail and there would be nothing useful to submit anyway.

What if my host blocks .txt files?

Some security plugins and firewalls do. Allowlist the file, or serve it from an edge worker via Cloudflare instead — that bypasses the origin entirely.

Does this work with WordPress?

Yes, and it is the most common setup we see. Upload the key file to the folder containing wp-config.php, add a snippet to functions.php, or let us install it. No plugin is required.

Do I still need an IndexNow plugin?

No, and we would suggest not running one alongside us. Most plugins fire a submission on every post save including autosaves, which is exactly the behaviour that gets a domain rate limited.

Does this work with Shopify?

Yes, but only via Cloudflare. Shopify will not serve a file at your site root, and the page-template workaround you will find elsewhere only authorises URLs under /pages/ — useless for products and collections.

Does this work with Squarespace?

Yes, with Cloudflare in front. Squarespace cannot serve a plain text file at the root, so an edge worker is the only reliable route.

Does this work with Wix?

Yes. Newer Wix plans include an SEO file upload that handles it. Otherwise put Cloudflare in front — the Velo function route only covers /_functions/, which is no use for your real pages.

Does this work with Webflow?

Yes, via Webflow's custom file upload — but check the resulting URL carefully. On some plans assets are served from a CDN domain, and a key on a different host proves nothing.

Does this work with Next.js, Laravel or a custom app?

Yes, and these are the easiest cases. Put the file in your public directory, commit it, deploy. It will survive every subsequent deploy.

Does it work with a headless CMS?

Yes. We read your sitemap, so whatever generates the site is irrelevant to us. Pair it with our ping API if you want submissions to fire the moment you publish.

What about WordPress Multisite?

Each site with its own domain is a separate host, so it needs its own key file and counts as its own domain here.

My platform is not listed. Will it work?

Almost certainly. If you can get a plain text file to load at your site root, IndexNow works. Tell us what you are running and we will write the guide.

How often do you check my sitemap?

Hourly by default. You can set it to every six hours, daily or weekly per domain. If hourly is not fast enough, use the instant ping API so new pages go out within seconds.

What is the instant ping API?

A single endpoint you can call from your CMS or deploy script when you publish. Each domain gets its own token, so you can drop it into a WordPress hook without handling account credentials.

How do you decide what to submit?

A URL is submitted when it is new, or when its lastmod moves forward. If your sitemap has no usable lastmod we fall back to fingerprinting page content — comparing a normalised hash between runs so cosmetic changes do not count.

Will you resubmit my whole site every day?

No, and this matters. We send deltas, not dumps. We also ignore sitemaps that rewrite every lastmod to today on each build, which would otherwise cause exactly that.

Is there a limit on how many URLs I can submit?

A fair-use cap of 10,000 URLs per domain per rolling day. That is far beyond what any normal site generates, and the cap exists to protect you — flooding the protocol gets your host rate limited.

What happens if I hit the cap?

Remaining URLs stay queued and go out on the next cycle. Nothing is lost. If you genuinely need more, email us.

Can I submit specific URLs manually?

Yes. There is a paste box on every domain page — one URL per line. They must be on the verified host.

What happens when a submission fails?

It is logged with the exact status code and the reason in plain English, the affected URLs are marked failed, and they are retried on the next cycle. On a 429 we stop the run rather than making it worse.

Can I see proof that you actually submitted something?

Yes, and this is deliberately front and centre. Every batch is logged with the endpoint, the exact HTTP status, the raw response body from the search engines and the round-trip time, alongside the URLs it carried.

Do you submit to each search engine separately?

By default we submit once to the shared endpoint, which forwards to all participating engines. There is an option for redundant per-engine delivery if you want belt and braces.

Can I pause submissions?

Yes. Turn off "submit changes automatically" on the domain, and we will keep tracking URLs without sending anything.

What if I delete a page?

Removing it from your sitemap is enough — we stop submitting it. Serve a 410 for permanently removed pages, or a 301 to the replacement.

What is the site health report?

While we crawl your pages to detect changes, we also record what we see — status codes, robots directives, canonicals, titles and descriptions. The report turns that into a list of problems worth fixing, with examples.

What problems can you find?

Dead URLs in your sitemap, pages marked noindex that you are still submitting, canonicals pointing elsewhere, sitemap entries that redirect, URLs on the wrong host, missing titles and descriptions, very thin pages, and slow pages.

Why does "noindex being submitted" matter?

Because it is a direct contradiction: you have told search engines to ignore the page, while also asking them to come and look at it. Every submission of that URL is wasted, and most people have no idea it is happening.

Do issues stay on the list after I fix them?

No. The report is generated fresh from current data every time you load it, so a fixed problem disappears on the next audit rather than nagging you forever.

How much of my site do you check?

A rotating batch each hour, oldest first, so a large site is covered over several cycles rather than being hammered in one. The panel shows what percentage has been checked.

Do you store copies of my pages?

No. We store your URLs, their last-modified dates, a one-way hash used purely to detect change, and a handful of facts like the title and status code. Never the page content itself.

Will crawling my site slow it down?

No. We fetch a small batch at a time with modest concurrency, and identify ourselves clearly in the user agent so you can see us in your logs.

What is in the weekly email?

What we submitted, anything that failed, health issues worth fixing, and the status of your key file. If nothing happened and nothing is wrong, we send nothing — a weekly "we did nothing" email just teaches you to ignore us.

What does connecting Bing Webmaster Tools give me?

Your actual Bing data: impressions, clicks, crawl errors and submission quota, pulled daily. IndexNow itself can only ever return a status code — it cannot tell you whether any of it worked.

Is connecting Bing required?

No, it is entirely optional. Everything else works without it.

Do you store my Bing API key?

Yes, encrypted at rest — unlike the installer credentials, this one has to persist because we poll Bing for you daily. You can disconnect at any time, which deletes both the key and the stored figures, and you can revoke it from Bing independently of us.

Why is Bing worth caring about?

Its index feeds DuckDuckGo and Yahoo, and underpins web results in several AI assistants including Copilot. As people ask assistants questions instead of typing queries, being current in Bing affects whether you get cited.

Will this help me appear in ChatGPT or Perplexity?

Indirectly, and we will not overclaim. Several AI tools retrieve from indexes that IndexNow feeds, so being current there makes you a candidate. Whether you get cited depends on your content.

Does Yandex matter for a UK or US site?

Usually very little. It is included because it costs nothing extra — the same submission reaches every participating engine.

What is Seznam, Naver or Yep?

Seznam is the leading search engine in the Czech Republic, Naver dominates in South Korea, and Yep is Ahrefs' search engine. Relevant if you have an audience there; harmless if you do not.

Can you submit to Google via its Indexing API?

No. Google restricts that API to job posting and live-streaming structured data. For everything else, sitemaps and normal crawling are the supported route — and anyone claiming otherwise is misusing it.

How do I check whether Bing has actually indexed a page?

Search Bing for site:yourdomain.com/your-page, or use the URL Inspection tool in Bing Webmaster Tools, which also tells you why a page was excluded.

Should I still submit a sitemap to search engines?

Yes, absolutely. Sitemaps remain the baseline discovery mechanism everywhere, including Google. IndexNow sits on top of that, it does not replace it.

What is llms.txt?

A plain text file at the root of your site that tells AI tools and language models which of your pages matter and what each one is about. It follows the format documented at llmstxt.org: a title, a short summary, then sections of links with descriptions.

Do search engines use llms.txt yet?

Adoption is early and honest answers matter here: no major search engine has committed to using it as a ranking signal, and Google has indicated it is not using it. Several AI developer tools and documentation platforms do read it.

Then why publish one?

Three reasons that do not depend on adoption: it costs almost nothing, it cannot hurt you, and writing it forces a genuinely useful exercise — deciding which twenty pages actually explain what you do.

Is your llms.txt generator really free?

Yes. We ask for an email address and your consent to contact you, and in exchange you get the file with no payment and no account. You can unsubscribe from the first email if you never want to hear from us again.

Where do I put the generated file?

The root of your site, so it loads at https://yoursite.com/llms.txt — the same place robots.txt lives, and the same place an IndexNow key file goes.

How does the generator build the file?

It finds your sitemap, ranks your URLs by how shallow they are, reads up to 120 pages for their real titles and descriptions, groups them by your own URL structure, and pushes legal and utility pages into the spec's Optional section.

What is llms-full.txt?

A longer variant with each page expanded onto its own section. Useful when a tool can afford a larger context; the shorter llms.txt is the one most consumers expect.

How often should I regenerate it?

Every few months, or whenever your site structure changes meaningfully. It is free, so there is no reason to let it go stale — a file describing pages that 404 is worse than no file.

Does llms.txt replace robots.txt or sitemap.xml?

No. They answer different questions: what you may fetch, what exists, and what is worth reading. Keep all three.

Should I block AI crawlers instead?

That depends on your business. Blocking training crawlers while allowing retrieval crawlers is a common middle ground — they are usually different user agents from the same company, so you can separate the two.

What exactly does $12 cover?

One hostname, for one year: unlimited URL submissions under a fair-use cap, sitemap checks as often as hourly, automatic change detection, the instant ping API, site health reporting, the key file watchdog, full submission logs and email support.

Is www.example.com a separate domain?

Under the IndexNow protocol, yes — it is a different host and needs its own key file. In practice you only need the version your site actually resolves to, since the other one should redirect. If you genuinely serve both, they are two domains.

Do I pay before I know it works?

No. You add the domain and verify the key file for free. You are only asked to pay once verification has passed. There is also a 14-day money-back guarantee after that.

What happens if I stop paying?

We keep submitting until the end of the period you paid for, then allow a further seven days grace, then pause the domain. Your data and history are kept, so renewing picks up exactly where you left off.

Do you offer a discount for lots of domains?

Add as many as you like to one account at $12 each. If you are running 25 or more, email us and we will sort out a bulk rate.

Can I get an invoice?

Yes. Payments run through Stripe, which issues a receipt automatically, and you can download invoices at any time from the billing portal in your account.

Why is it so cheap?

Because this is infrastructure, not a growth product. It should cost about what a domain renewal costs and then get out of your way. There is no enterprise tier because there is nothing extra to sell you.

Will the price go up?

If it ever does, existing subscriptions keep their price for as long as they stay active. We would not raise a renewal on someone already paying.

How do I cancel?

From the billing page, in one click. Service continues to the end of the period you have already paid for.

What does "fair use" actually mean?

A cap of 10,000 URLs per domain per rolling day. It exists to protect you rather than us — exceeding what the protocol expects gets your host rate limited by search engines.

What data do you store about my site?

Your domain, your URLs, their last-modified dates, a one-way content hash used only for change detection, and basic page facts like status code and title. We do not keep copies of your pages.

Do you store my payment details?

No. Payments are handled entirely by Stripe. We never see or store your card number — only Stripe's customer and subscription identifiers.

Which credentials do you keep, and which don't you?

Installer credentials — Cloudflare tokens, FTP passwords — are used once and discarded. A Bing Webmaster API key is kept, encrypted, because we poll it daily on your behalf. We say which is which at the point you enter them.

Can I revoke access after setup?

Yes. Cloudflare tokens and Bing API keys can be revoked from those services at any time, independently of us. The key file itself is yours to delete whenever you like.

How long do you keep my data?

Account and domain data while your account is open, then deleted within 90 days of closure. Submission logs for 24 months so you can audit what was sent.

Do you sell my data?

No. We do not sell personal data and we do not share your email address with advertisers.

Is my API token safe to put in a WordPress hook?

Treat it like a password — anyone with it can queue URLs for that one domain. It cannot be used to access your account, change settings or see your billing. Regenerate it if you think it has leaked.

Are you GDPR compliant?

We record consent with its exact wording, timestamp and IP, honour access and deletion requests within 30 days, and use a short list of named processors. Full detail is in the privacy policy.

My key file will not verify. What is wrong?

Almost always one of four things: it was uploaded to a subfolder instead of the site root; your site returns a styled 404 page with an HTTP 200 status; a security plugin or firewall is blocking .txt files; or a cache is still serving the old response. Our verification message tells you which one it is.

It says my key file returned HTML. What does that mean?

Your site rendered a page rather than serving a plain text file — usually a catch-all route or a themed 404. The file needs to be served as a real static file, or from an edge worker.

The file loads in my browser but verification fails. Why?

Check it from outside your network in a private window. Common causes are a cache serving you a different response, an IP allowlist, or a firewall rule that blocks unfamiliar user agents.

Why is my URL count lower than my sitemap?

We filter out URLs on a different host, because one stray URL causes IndexNow to reject an entire batch. The site health panel shows how many were skipped.

Why has nothing been submitted yet?

Check three things: the domain is verified, it has an active subscription, and automatic submission is switched on. If all three are true and it is still quiet, your sitemap may not have changed since the last run.

My sync says it failed. What now?

The most common cause is that we could not read your sitemap. Set the sitemap URL explicitly in the domain settings, or check it loads publicly without a redirect.

I published a page but it was not submitted. Why?

Either it is not in your sitemap yet — many CMSes regenerate on a delay — or the next scheduled sync has not run. Use the ping API or the manual submit box if you need it out immediately.

Can I export my submission history?

Not yet as a download. Everything is visible in the dashboard, and if you need an export for a client report, email us and we will send you one.

How do I move a domain to a different account?

Email us from the address on the current account with the domain and the destination email, and we will move it across along with its history.

How do I delete my account?

Remove your domains from the dashboard, then email us to close the account. We delete account data within 90 days, keeping only what tax law requires us to keep for billing records.