How IndexNow Works

IndexNow is an open protocol that lets websites proactively notify search engines when content changes. Instead of waiting for crawlers to discover your updates, you tell them directly. It's supported by Bing, Yandex, and other search engines.

Traditional crawling vs IndexNow

With traditional crawling, search engines discover your content on their own schedule. A bot visits your site, checks for changes, and re-indexes what it finds. This can take days or weeks — especially for smaller sites that don't get crawled frequently.

IndexNow flips this model. When you publish or update a page, you send a notification to the search engine saying "this URL changed." The search engine then prioritizes crawling that URL. It's the difference between waiting for someone to check your mailbox and calling them to say there's new mail.

Why Bing matters for AI

ChatGPT (OpenAI) and Microsoft Copilot use Bing's search index when answering questions with web data. If your content is in Bing's index, it can surface in AI-generated answers. If it's not indexed — or indexed with stale content — AI tools won't reference it.

Getting your content into Bing's index quickly and keeping it fresh is the fastest path to AI discoverability.

How ShowUpInAI automates IndexNow

You don't need to implement IndexNow yourself. ShowUpInAI handles the entire workflow:

1. Regular crawls detect changes. ShowUpInAI periodically crawls your site and compares pages against their last known state.
2. Changed URLs are queued. New and updated pages are added to the submission queue.
3. Batched submissions to Bing. URLs are sent to Bing's IndexNow endpoint in efficient batches.
4. Dashboard tracks everything. View your submission history, see which URLs were sent, and monitor status.