Getting your website’s pages indexed quickly by search engines is critical for boosting organic traffic and improving your search engine rankings. 

But, search engine indexing is slow and unpredictable, like waiting for a snail to crawl across a busy street. 

Luckily, web publishers can now take advantage of an innovative protocol called IndexNow, which solves the issue of slow and inaccurate indexing. 

In this article, you will discover the ins and outs of IndexNow, including its benefits and how it can help you improve your search engine rankings and attract more traffic to your website.

So, buckle up and get ready to say goodbye to slow indexing!

Why Do You Need IndexNow?

The process of search engine indexing is essential in determining a website’s search engine rankings and driving traffic to it. Whenever new content is published, it must be indexed by search engines to appear in search results. 

However, search engine bots can take days or even weeks to crawl and index new content.

This delay can seriously affect website owners, especially those relying on time-sensitive updates like news events or product launches. 

In such cases, delays in indexing can result in missed sales and reduced revenue.

What exactly is IndexNow?

IndexNow is an innovative open-source protocol developed by Microsoft and Yandex to improve the indexing process for web content. 

With this protocol, web publishers can instantly notify search engines about their content updates rather than waiting for traditional search engine crawlers to find and index the updates. 

This innovative approach to indexing saves time and ensures that the most fresh content is quickly available to users.

How to use IndexNow?

It’s simple! Web publishers can send a ping via the IndexNow API to search engines to notify them about content updates. Then search engines can quickly send bots to crawl, index, and reflect the changes. 

To find out how to do it, follow this link: https://www.indexnow.org/documentation.

In short, you only need to create a key on your server and then post a URL to the search engine to notify IndexNow-participating search engines of the change. 

Once a URL is submitted to one search engine via IndexNow, it is simultaneously submitted to all other participating search engines.

This method is known as “push indexing,” as publishers push the updated content to search engines rather than relying on traditional “pull indexing,” where search engine crawlers visit websites to find new content. 

The benefits of push indexing with IndexNow are significant, including faster and more accurate indexing of new and updated content, leading to improved search engine rankings and increased organic website traffic.

Google & IndexNow: Why Google is Keeping Its Distance

If you are surprised that Google itself isn’t so keen on IndexNow, don’t rush to close this article. IndexNow is still useful for webmasters because it helps them get indexed faster on search engines like Microsoft Bing, Seznam.cz, and Yandex. Undoubtedly, your customers may be among the users of these search engines!

Equally interesting are the reasons why Google stays away. It’s a fascinating topic, and I’ve taken the liberty of delving deeper into the matter. 

  1. Cost: Google may not see the cost of participating in IndexNow as a worthwhile investment. Building and maintaining an indexing system is expensive, and if Google feels that it can achieve the same or better results on its own, it may choose not to participate in IndexNow.
  2. Competition: IndexNow is a collaborative effort between multiple search engines, including Bing and Yahoo, which are direct competitors to Google. Google may see participation in IndexNow as helping its competitors to improve their search results, potentially putting Google at a disadvantage.
  3. Technical limitations: Google’s indexing system is highly sophisticated and constantly evolving. Google may feel that the technical limitations of IndexNow would prevent it from achieving the same level of precision and comprehensiveness as its own system.
  4. Strategic differences: Google’s approach to search and indexing may differ significantly from the policy taken by other search engines involved in IndexNow. Google may want to maintain its approach to search and indexing to fit within the framework of IndexNow.
  5. Lack of perceived benefits: Google may not see significant benefits to participating in IndexNow, such as improved search results or increased user engagement. If Google can achieve these benefits through its efforts or other partnerships, it may choose not to participate in IndexNow.

IndexNow Benefits for SEO

While Google, the major search engine industry player, has not collaborated with IndexNow, this innovative protocol still offers tremendous potential for boosting SEO.

Benefit #1: Much Faster Indexing

IndexNow allows web publishers to quickly and easily inform participating search engines of any updates made to their content. This service improves visibility, increases traffic, and reduces the time it takes to index content from several days to just a few minutes.

Benefit #2: Improved Energy Efficiency

Typical search engine crawlers use a lot of energy to index websites. IndexNow provides a more efficient solution that simplifies the process of finding new content and reduces energy consumption.

Benefit #3: Better User Experience

When searching on the web, users want to find the most recent information. IndexNow helps web publishers ensure that their content is quickly indexed, making it easier for users to discover and interact with it.

Benefit #4: Competitive Advantage 

Using IndexNow, web publishers can index content faster than their competitors, giving them an advantage in their markets. It results in higher visibility, increased traffic, and more revenue.

CONCLUSION

Indexing plays a crucial role in SEO, and web publishers should prioritize getting their content indexed quickly to ensure that it reaches users promptly. 

IndexNow provides a simple solution to this problem, allowing web publishers to notify search engines about updates to their content in real time. Using IndexNow, web publishers can benefit from faster indexing, improved energy efficiency, a potential rankings boost, and increased organic traffic. 

We encourage all web publishers to consider using IndexNow to improve their SEO efforts and stay ahead of the competition. Moreover, you can use the WebCEO services to improve your SEO with link building, on-page optimization, and rank tracking.

Boost your SEO Improve link building, on-page optimization and rank tracking Sign Up Free