Bing IndexNow: How It Works, Setup Guide & Documentation
Microsoft Bing is the co-creator of the IndexNow protocol and has the most mature implementation. This guide covers everything about Bing's IndexNow integration including how Bing processes submitted URLs, the indexing timeline, and how to verify submissions via Bing Webmaster Tools.
Why Bing Co-Created IndexNow
Bing's motivation for creating IndexNow stems from a fundamental inefficiency in the web: search engines waste enormous computational resources re-crawling pages that haven't changed, while new and updated content waits hours or days to be discovered. Microsoft published research showing that a significant percentage of web crawling activity is "wasted" bots fetching pages with no meaningful changes since the last visit.
IndexNow inverts this dynamic. Instead of bots polling for changes, website owners notify search engines when changes occur. This is more efficient for both sides: search engines crawl only what's actually new, and publishers get near-instant indexing.
Bing publicly committed to prioritizing IndexNow submissions in their indexing pipeline, and multiple Bing Webmaster Tools blog posts confirm that IndexNow is the recommended method for notifying Bing of content changes.
How Bing Processes IndexNow Submissions
Receive Notification
Bing receives your GET or POST request to api.indexnow.org/indexnow. The request is immediately logged in their queue.
Verify Key File
Bing fetches https://yourdomain.com/{your-key}.txt to confirm the file exists, is accessible (200 OK), contains exactly the key string, and the Content-Type is text/plain.
Priority Queue Placement
Verified URLs bypass the standard discovery crawl queue and enter a priority indexing queue reserved for IndexNow submissions.
Content Fetch & Processing
Bing's crawlers fetch and process your content. This includes parsing metadata, canonical tags, noindex directives, and structured data.
Index Update
Processed pages appear in Bing search results. You can verify via Bing Webmaster Tools → URL Inspection → "Request indexing" status.
Bing IndexNow API Endpoints
Bing also accepts submissions directly to https://www.bing.com/indexnow both endpoints are equivalent.
Bing Webmaster Tools + IndexNow
Bing Webmaster Tools (BWT) provides a dashboard to monitor your IndexNow submissions. After setup, navigate to Bing Webmaster Tools → IndexNow to see:
- Total URLs submitted in the last 30 days
- Submission success and rejection rates
- Error breakdown (invalid key, 404 responses, etc.)
- URL-level submission history
We recommend verifying at least your first 5–10 submissions via Bing Webmaster Tools to confirm your key file is properly accessible and submissions are being received without errors.
Bing IndexNow Limits and Rate Limits
| Limit Type | Value |
|---|---|
| Max URLs per POST request | 10,000 |
| Max requests per day (recommended) | No documented hard limit; avoid more than 100 batch submissions/day |
| Same URL re-submission interval | Minimum 24 hours between submissions of the same URL |
| Key file max size | 128 characters (key string length) |
| Supported URL protocols | https:// only (recommended); http:// accepted but deprioritized |