User:Saralnigam01/sandbox

= IndexNow = IndexNow is an open source protocol allowing webmasters to instantly inform participating search engines about the latest changes on their website.

At its core IndexNow is a simple ping to the search engines to discover the content changes like Create, Update or Delete on a website to help search engines to quickly index and reflect these changes in their search results.

IndexNow is open to all participating search engines, and they share all the URLs received through IndexNow with each other.

By reducing redundant crawls, IndexNow aims to improve overall internet efficiency.

History
Microsoft announced IndexNow in Oct 2021. Created by Microsoft Bing and Yandex as an open source protocol allowing all search engines with a significant presence in at least one market to participate.

IndexNow sharing between search engines began in Jan 2022.

How it works?
Typically search engines follow a pull model and use their crawlers to pull content from the web. This involves crawlers visiting a website and gathering the data from the webpage. This can take from a few days to weeks for search engines to discover the latest content.

With IndexNow this model moves towards a push model wherein websites provide a signal to search engines as soon as the changes (Create, Update or Delete) are made.

IndexNow ensures that all search engines adopting the protocol agree that all submitted URLs will be shared automatically with all the participating search engines. For search engines to participate they need to have a noticeable presence in at least one market.

The sharing of these URLs with all other search engines ensures efficiency gains for all the publishers as well as the search engines.

Benefits
1.       Faster Indexing leading to fresher content in search results.

2.       Single call to update multiple search engines.

3.       Reduced exploratory crawling.

4.       Allows to communicate non-200 status code pages as well unlike XML sitemaps.

5.       Reduced infra costs for search engines as well as websites.

6.       Reduced carbon footprint leading to sustainable development.

How to use?
1.       Generate API Key

2.       Host API key

3.       Submit URLs with parameters

4.       Get details on submitted URLs

Generate API Key
API key is needed to match the ownership of the domain and is submitted along with the URLs.

Host API key
API key is hosted in the root directory in txt format. This helps in verifying the ownership of the submitted URLs.

Submit URLs with parameters
Submit individual or bulk URLs. Key location is submitted as an URL parameter.

Get details on submitted URLs
URLs submitted and discovered can be seen in the Bing Webmaster Tools portal (sign-in required)