Tell search engines about new and updated pages the moment they ship instead of waiting to be crawled. IndexNow is the shared fast-lane protocol behind Bing, Yandex, Seznam, and Naver: generate a key once, host the verification file, and push URL lists whenever your content changes. The tool validates every line against your host before anything is sent.
Your URL list is sent to api.lunchboxhands.com, which forwards it to api.indexnow.org — the host, the URLs, and the key are never stored or logged. Pair it with the sitemap generator for the crawl-based engines, check your markup with the structured data validator, and run the SEO analyzer before announcing a launch.
Frequently asked questions
What is IndexNow?
IndexNow is an open protocol, backed by Microsoft Bing and Yandex among others, that lets site owners tell search engines the moment a URL is added, updated, or deleted — instead of waiting for the next crawl. One submission is shared between all participating engines, so you only need to ping one endpoint.
Does Google support IndexNow?
No — Google has said it evaluates the protocol but currently relies on its own crawling and the Search Console URL Inspection / sitemap pipeline. IndexNow today reaches Bing, Yandex, Seznam.cz, Naver, and engines that consume their indexes (which includes DuckDuckGo results via Bing). For Google, keep your sitemap fresh and use Search Console.
How does the key file verification work?
Ownership is proven by hosting a plain-text file whose name and content are both your key, at the root of your site: https://example.com/<key>.txt. When you submit, the search engine fetches that file itself; if the content matches the key you submitted, the submission is accepted. Generate a key above, upload the file, and the same key stays valid for future submissions — the tool remembers it in your browser so it is still there next time. This tool cannot read your site, so it cannot verify the file for you — until the file is live, submissions come back as a verification failure.
How many URLs can I submit, and how often?
This tool accepts up to 100 URLs per submission (the protocol itself allows up to 10,000 via the JSON API), and up to 10 submissions per minute per visitor so one user cannot get the shared endpoint throttled. Submit when content actually changes — engines explicitly deprioritize submitters who ping unchanged URLs repeatedly, so it is a freshness signal, not an SEO volume knob.
Why did my submission come back with a key error?
A 403-style response means the engine fetched https://your-host/<key>.txt and could not verify it: the file is missing, unreachable, returns HTML instead of plain text, or its content does not exactly match the key. Check the file in a private browser window — the content must be the key string alone, with nothing else.
Can the key file live somewhere other than my site root?
Yes. If you cannot write to the root, host the file elsewhere on the same host and pass its full URL as the key location — expand "Use a custom key location" after generating a key. The file still has to be on the same hostname you are submitting for, and its content must still be exactly the key.