New IndexNow initiative pushes content to search engines

A new initiative from Microsoft and Yandex named ‘IndexNow’ is being rolled out, and it will allow site owners to inform search engines when new content has been added to a site, and when any existing content has been updated.

Microsoft announced the initiative on its blog, saying that the update will enable:

“Websites to easily notify search engines whenever their website content is created, updated, or deleted.”

According to Microsoft, the goal of the new initiative is to make the internet more efficient, as it will reduce the reliance on search engine spiders to crawl the internet looking for new, updated or deleted content. If a website is updated with new content or old content is deleted, IndexNow will automatically notify search engines.

Currently, the search engines that are fully taking part in the IndexNow initiative are Microsoft Bing and Yandex. For now, it doesn’t appear as though Google will be using the initiative, but this could change in the future.

The new initiative does sound like the Bing URL submission API, which has been available on the Bing Webmaster Tools platform for a while and performs a similar role in letting search engines know that a website has been updated. It is, however, unclear if the Bing URL submission API will still be available with the launch of IndexNow.

The most significant different between the Bing URL submission API and IndexNow is that the latter can be used across multiple search engines, while the Bing URL submission API only works with the Bing search engine.

Integrations with other platforms

Many third-party websites, such as eBay, LinkedIn, MSN and GitHub, are supporting the new initiative, and IndexNow will be integrated into these platforms in the future.

Microsoft has also provided code to integrate the IndexNow functionality into popular content management systems (CMS) like WordPress, Wix and Duda.

Content created as part of a search engine optimisation (SEO) strategy is a great way to increase traffic to your site. At Engage Web, we offer SEO services that will help you to increase the number of users visiting your site through search engines like Google. To find out more, give our friendly team a call.

• About
• Latest Posts

Jonathon Roberts

Jonathon lives and breathes marketing, boasting a degree in Business Management and Marketing Management and a diverse list of experiences both professional and voluntary. Having grown up in the thick of the digital and social media age, he has been quick to dive into online marketing and search engine optimisation in his career and spare time, spanning such fields as academics, local business and sport.

Latest posts by Jonathon Roberts (see all)

• Key takeaways from Google’s latest search reviews update - November 10, 2023
• Mobile-first indexing: what is it, and why has it taken so long? - November 3, 2023
• Google updates structured data understanding - October 31, 2023