While the Auto-Indexing tool only submits your URLs to Google, the IndexNow tool submits your URLs to many other search engines like Bing, Yandex, Naver, Seznam.cz, and Yep with just one submission.
You can visit that URL to validate if the file is uploaded successfully.
Step 3: Add Sitemap URLs to SEO Utils
Open the SEO Utils app and click the IndexNow in the left sidebar to access the tool.
IndexNow tool in SEO Utils
Click the "Import URLs" button or the "Plus" icon to add sitemap URLs.
Add sitemap URLs
After adding sitemap URLs, SEO Utils will import all the URLs. You can also switch the sites by using the Site dropdown.
Switching to a site to view URLs
Step 4: Add IndexNow API Key to Sites
While selecting a site, you will see the "Cog" icon. Click on it to open the settings modal.
Open the Site Settings modal
Enter the IndexNow API Key you got from Step 1 and hit the "Save" button.
Enter the API Key
Now, all the setup is done. You are ready for indexing submission!
Checking Index
You can trigger a process to bulk-check the index for all URLs on your site by clicking the Check Index action.
Bulk check index action
You can also check index for a single URL by clicking the vertical dots icon.
Check index for a URL
SEO Utils will search Bing and other search engines using the "site:url" operator to see if the URL is on the SERP.
You want to consider using Proxies to prevent the search engines from blocking your IP when checking thousands of URLs.
Submitting Index
Just like the "Check Index" action, you can submit either multiple URLs or just one URL for indexing.
When you bulk-submit URLs, SEO Utils will submit all URLs, regardless of their indexed or submitted status.
Bulk submit index action
Scheduled Jobs (Auto-mode)
SEO Utils will pull URLs from all sitemaps daily at 5:00 AM (your local time) to get new URLs and check if the existing URLs have content updated by using the Last Mod field from your sitemaps.
SEO Utils will auto-check index of all sites at 6:00 AM (your local time).
SEO Utils will auto-submit your sites for indexing every 10 minutes.
SEO Utils also detects when your content has been added or updated; it will automatically resubmit the URL. Just make sure to keep the app open at all times.
Override the Auto-Mode Behavior
This is the default behavior of the Auto-mode
Checking index: If a URL is already indexed, it won't re-check index for that URL in the subsequent runs.
Submitting index: If a URL is already submitted or indexed, it won't re-submit that URL in the subsequent runs.
If you would like to override those behaviors, please open the Site setting modal.
Open the setting modal.
You will see 2 fields:
Auto Recheck Index After field: You can specify the number of days to recheck the index even if the URL is already indexed.
Auto Resubmit Index After field: You can specify the number of days to resubmit URLs even if URLs are already submitted but not indexed.
Override the Auto-mode behavior
Troubleshooting
URL received. IndexNow key validation pending
When you have just added a new API key and try to submit the index, you will see a message: "URL received. IndexNow key validation pending." This is because IndexNow needs to validate the API key with the file you uploaded to your website.
This message will disappear after a couple of minutes.
How to Fix 403 Forbidden Error: User is unauthorized to access the site. Please verify the site using the key and try again
This error occurs when IndexNow is unable to verify your site because you entered the wrong API key or the uploaded file was not located at the root of your website.
If this error keeps happening, you will need to regenerate an API key and complete the setup process again.
If you have any further questions, please visit the FAQs section on the IndexNow website at https://www.indexnow.org/faq
Two Checking Index Methods
Since version 1.17.0, SEO Utils now supports using the Bing Webmaster Tools API to check if a URL is indexed on Bing.com, in addition to the traditional "site:url" operator method.
To switch the checking index method of a site, please open the site setting modal.
Open the site setting modal.
You can select the Bing Webmaster Tools API option from the "Checking Index Method" field.
