IndexNow Radically Changes Search Engine Indexing

Crawling and indexing in SEO are the backbone of any search engine optimisation campaign. In order to get good SEO rankings, a website must first be crawled and indexed by search engines.

Microsoft recently released IndexNow, which is seen to significantly change how search engines find and index pages. It is open source and available to all search engines that choose to participate.

When there is newly published or updated content on a website, all participating search engines are notified by IndexNow. This indexing protocol will greatly reduce the time it takes to index the new content.

In November 2021, the IndexNow sharing will begin across search engines, with a web page limit of 10,000 each day. This protocol is open to any search engine that has huge influence in at least one market.

Evolution Of Search Indexing From Pull To Push

The way search engines acquire web page data is either via a "pull" or a "push." When a crawler visits a site to request pages and "pulls" the information from the server, this is known as a pull approach. This is the standard method used by most search engines.

IndexNow uses a push approach, which is when a CMS like WordPress tells search engines when new or updated material is ready for crawling and indexing.

The major advantage to this is that publishers no longer have to wait for search engines to crawl and evaluate their material. Search engines are immediately aware of it and visit the site to obtain the new or updated pages.

As per Microsoft's statement, many website owners typically struggle with getting search engines to quickly discover and evaluate their most recent website modifications. It might take days, if not weeks, for new URLs to be discovered and indexed in search engines, resulting in missed traffic, customers, and sales.

IndexNow, on the other hand, quickly crawls and reflects website modifications in its index and search results once search engines are informed of changes.

Which Companies Developed IndexNow?

Yandex and Microsoft developed IndexNow. The technology is open-source, allowing any search engine to join in. When there is a web page change or update, all participating search engines are informed.

IndexNow can be beneficial to SEO experts and site owners because it lowers the server's crawling demand; search engines won't have to do exploratory crawls to see whether pages have been updated. This reduces the time it takes for the content to be found and indexed.

Reducing server load helps the server operate smoothly without adding to the burden of redundancy in serving web pages that search engines have already encountered. In the long run, it benefits everyone by lowering energy consumption for crawling and indexing, mitigating climate change in the process.

Bing also announced that IndexNow is a project to improve the Internet as a whole. Website owners send a clear signal to search engines, helping them prioritise crawling for these URLs and minimising the need for exploratory crawling to check if the content has changed.

In the future, search engines plan to limit crawling for websites that use IndexNow.

Large Companies Are Adopting The New Protocol

According to Microsoft, prominent firms such as LinkedIn, eBay, GitHub, MSN, and Bizapedia are considering migrating from Bing URL submission API to IndexNow. Because the new system's advantages are so great, it is expected that other larger enterprises will follow suit. Smaller businesses may want to consider adopting the new protocol to improve their indexing and stay ahead of their competitors.

How Does The New Protocol Work?

There are three options for submitting URLs:

1. SEO Integration Of IndexNow – The first step is OnCrawl and Botify's plans to integrate IndexNow.

2. Direct Submission Through API

The second option is to submit URLs via an API. Developers may use an API to submit URLs to IndexNow automatically.

The announcement pointed to using their online key generating tool to create a key compatible with the protocol. Next, webmasters can host the key in a text file on their site name with the value of the key at the root of the site.

Lastly, one can submit their URLs when the links are updated, added, or deleted. Site owners can submit one set of URLs or one URL per API call. Submitting one URL is similar to sending a simple HTTP request containing the key, and the URL changed.

3. Integration With CMS And CDNs

This third option is how most sites will connect with IndexNow, utilising a native capability of whatever CMS they run on.

Wix and Duda understand the value that IndexNow brings to customers, and they are already working on implementing it. Cloudflare and Akamai also support this protocol.

WordPress Has Yet To Implement IndexNow

Although competitors, such as Dude and Wix, have recognised the benefits of IndexNow, WordPress has yet to decide whether they will implement the new indexing protocol in their system. WordPress might use it and join their competitors in the future; however, for the past seven months, its core developers have been stuck with the same proposal with no apparent resolution.

According to the public WordPress development ticket, there has yet to be a decision made. Nonetheless, Microsoft has submitted the IndexNow open-source code to WordPress for inclusion into the core. If implemented by WordPress, it would enable publishers to opt into submitting their URLs via IndexNow automatically.

In response to a query from WordPress core developers, Microsoft admitted that publishers would have the option of submitting their changes and new URLs to which search engines they choose. As a result, they can prevent certain search engines from receiving information about their sites.

IndexNow Could Be The Evolution Of Search Indexing

IndexNow is a game-changer because it allows search engines to discover newly published and updated documents in an entirely new way. It benefits publishers, allowing them to experience faster indexing and reduced server strain due to bots constantly crawling their web pages. The adoption of Instant Articles by major search engines will evolve the relationship between search engines and publishers.

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