One of the things that has been cropping up with my Bing Webmaster Tools was IndexNow. I’m not a webmaster, or main webdeveloper that understands, I just learn things at a time. IndexNow is a good feature, and great idea. You submit an updated article to a site that uses it, this then distributes to all other sites. It saves you submitted URL over and over again.
I’m not a developer so had to do some Googling, as the help from the Bing IndexNow page is a bit confusing. I couldn’t grasp on how to set things up. I managed to generate the key for IndexNow but couldn’t decipher everything else it was talking about.
I did some Googling on the web and come across this post on swimburger which discusses IndexNow
After reading it, it helped me understand how it works (I still can’t do multiple URL, but as my site generally only tends to be single articles). I’m not that bothered, as I can manually submit everything anyway. I figure the multiple URL is just create a .json file, then submit to IndexNow using the same procedure as noted for the single method.
Now that I understand the procedure, I thought I’d write a quite how to, in order to simplify it (or explain it my own words) to help others understand how to submit their website with IndexNow with a HTTP request for pages they update. Obviously, if you’re website is based around something like WordPress, it’s far simpler installing the plugins and letting them do the work, my site doesn’t utilise just one thing though. So I understand the manual method too now.
Implementing IndexNow manually on your website
In order to use IndexNow, you need to do 4 things (which is briefly touched on with the IndexNow page on bing)
- Generate the API kEY
- Host the API Key
- Submit the URL with keys included
- Verify websites have been recognised with IndexNow
Generating the API Key for IndexNow
Go to the following URL on the Bing IndexNow website, and click on Generate a few times to generate an API Key file, then click on the download button (it’s the downward arrow pointing to the little U shape to the right of the key)
Upload the API key
Open up your Cpanel / File Manager with your webhosting service (mine is done via HostXNow – link below), or HTML website editing software, and manually upload the key file to the root director of your website
Submit URL with IndexNow including Key
It’s simply a case of building the URL into the structure using the supplied of formulas, and then submitting with your favourite search engine (by sipmly trying to go to the website address).
Verifying IndexNow submission
After you did the above, Navigate to the IndexNow submission page for your website that you own or manage. If it’s visible it worked
Examples of IndexNow working
Need proof?
For the context of this article (and for my own testing purposes). I submitted one of the URL on my own personal website using the IndexNow functionality after I figured it out. Plus I’ll also be submitting this post using the same IndexNow feature, because you know, free traffic and all 🙂
The URL I submitted to IndexNow was on replacing the fuel filter on a BKD engine on my website
The structure of manual submission to IndexNow with a HTTP GET request is the following
- Search Engine IndexNow page
- URL to submit
- Key file to use
All of these are joined together using formulas and queries to identify the structure). The punctuation and abbreviations and formulas below are important
Submission page : https://www.bing.com/indexnow?
URL to submit : https://www.andrewhope.co.uk/automotive/techdocs/audi-a3-fuel-filter-replacement-bkd-engine.html
Key file : &key= (then the bit you generated above that is a mixture of letters and numbers) DO NOT INCLUDE THE .TXT extension
After you have built up the structure you simply do a HTTP GET request. (People in Linux can do this, but don’t feel I need to explain this as they probably already know). On Windows, the easiest way is just to open up your favourite web browser, then copy and past the address into the website address and press enter. If it’s successful, you should come up with a blank page like below
Then navigate to the IndexNow submission page given above in BingWebMaster Tools to verify it has been submitted
Hope that helps
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