Search engine optimization (SEO) is a developing field, which changes with the development of technology. Earlier, having meta-descriptions and meta-keywords was enough for search engine crawlers to know what was on your page.
today, search engines are smart enough to understand the context by mastering the content on any page without extra input. However, one of the issues that no one cares about is the time it takes to crawl and discover the page after the content has been published or modified.
IndexNow is the API solution that Bing tries to solve this problem. In this article, we will explore what Bing IndexNow is and how to use this latest technology to submit your WordPress site to search engines.
current settings-submit sites through XML site maps
traditionally site owners submit content to search engines through XML Sitemap. To do this, you need a free webmaster tool account called Search Console with Google and Webmaster Tools, as well as other search engines such as Bing, Baidu, and Yandex.
you must verify the ownership of your site in your account and manually submit the XML site map. This site map contains parameters such as URL and the date the page was last modified, which are used by search engines to find updates on your site.
in addition, you can choose to submit a single page when you use the URL submit / check tool in your webmaster tool account to make changes. The problem with
‘s above approach is that search engine crawlers take some time (at least a day for smaller sites) to crawl your XML site map. In addition, many site owners do not have time to manually submit content when updating content.
this leads to poor discovery of content by search engines and excessive preparation time for indexing the right content. Depending on the type of content you publish, it works differently. For example, news articles posted on CNN will immediately appear in Google search results, while articles posted on your site may take several days to display.
therefore, if the page is time-related, you may lose traffic to the latest page, or even lose sales.
, what is IndexNow?
IndexNow is a technology developed by Microsoft and Yandex to solve the delay in finding content by search engines. It eliminates manual work and allows site owners to submit their content to an endpoint. Interested search engines can get content from endpoints.
to do this, you do not need to have a webmaster tool account or verify the ownership of your site. Although this is exciting, the general setup process is complex, as follows:
- Generate an API key from the Bing IndexNow website and download the generated key as a text file.
- uploads the text file to the root of the site.
- submits the newly created and modified pages in the desired format.
- View the report in the Bing webmaster tool account (to do this, you still need to register an account) the
Bing IndexNow implementation process
uses Bing IndexNow
technology in WordPress to quickly reach users only if it is easy to adapt. If site owners had to generate API keys and follow the complex process described above, they would never implement IndexNow. Fortunately for
, if you use WordPress, you don’t have to worry about the process. Bing has a WordPress plug-in that you can use to automatically submit new and modified content from your site to the IndexNow pool.
logs in to the administrative panel of your site and goes to the “plug-ins & gt; installation plug-ins” section. Type “indexnow” in the search box to find “IndexNow Plugin” and install it on your site. Note that there is another “Index Now” plug-in, so install the correct plug-in from Microsoft Bing. After
Microsoft Bing’s IndexNow Plugin
activates the plug-in, go to the Settings & gt; IndexNow menu from the sidebar. This section shows a summary of the features provided by the plug-in, and then click “Let’s Get Started!” Button.
IndexNow Plugin feature
IndexNow plug-in feature
does not require special settings to use the IndexNow plug-in with the WordPress site. It automatically generates API keys and hosts on your site. If necessary, you can submit the page manually, or the plug-in will automatically submit the newly created and modified page from your site to the IndexNow endpoint. The dashboard displays all submitted URL (manual and automatic) as well as the total number of successful and failed submissions. The
IndexNow plug-in dashboard
manually submits the page to IndexNow
you do not need to use the manual submit option because the plug-in will do all the necessary submissions for you. However, if necessary, click the Submit URL button under the Mannual URL submission section. Enter the URL of the page you want to submit, and then click the Submit URL button. You will see the submission status immediately under the successful or failed submission section.
manually commits URL
autocommit
in IndexNow this is the most useful part of the plug-in, eliminating the need to manually host the API key file and the URL submission process. By default, automatic URL commit is enabled when the plug-in is activated. However, you can check and manage this option by clicking the three vertical point icons displayed in Automate URL submission. Then click the “Edit preference” button that appears.
Editing preferences
in the pop-up window that appears, you can enable or disable the automatic URL commit option. Keep in mind that this is a site-wide setting that affects all newly created and modified content. There is no option in the plug-in to enable or disable automatic submission of individual articles or pages.
Enable automatic URL submission
in IndexNow when this option is enabled, the plug-in will automatically submit the content to the IndexNow endpoint when you click the publish or Update button in the editor. You can view the status in the successful or failed section of the submission, and view all submitted pages in the “URLs submitted” section. The list will show a maximum of 20 successful and 20 failed URL.
checks the status of the submitted URL
if you want to resubmit the URL for any reason, simply click the refresh icon that appears on the right side of the URL. This will immediately resubmit your page, and you will see a new line with status added to the list.
URL resubmitted successfully
you can also download all submitted URL files as JSON files for offline analysis.
Note: the Rank Math SEO plug-in recently introduced a new feature that allows you to submit URL to Bing using IndexNow API. You can submit it automatically or manually as needed. In addition, we have developed a multi-in-one search push plug-in that supports pushing the article URL to Google, Baidu, bing and other search engines.
summary
IndexNow is a major technological change to traditional methods that makes content discovery as fast as possible.
is currently using IndexNow in Bing and Yandex search engines. This means that all the URL you submit can be indexed by these search engines immediately. The advantage is that the search engine part of the IndexNow program can share URL between them to further reduce indexing time. Although Google, the major search engine, has not yet used this mechanism, it is definitely the way forward. If
isn’t now, WordPress site owners won’t have to worry about things like webmaster tools, site validation, and XML site maps in the near future. IndexNow or any other similar mechanism will automate content discovery, which can be enabled using simple plug-ins.
