Microsoft Bing Release An IndexNow Plugin For WordPress

January 14, 2022

Since first releasing IndexNow, Microsoft Bing have been working hard on the service and they have now released a plugin for WordPress that lets you easily integrate the IndexNow protocol on your WordPress site.

You may be asking, what is IndexNow? Well, in short – IndexNow is a protocol that allows website owners to instantly notify search engines about changes on their site. Whether you are adding, deleting or changing content, IndexNow is a simple ping protocol that allows search engines to quickly reflect these changes in their search results.

As of writing, IndexNow has been adopted by Bing & Yandex, although Google is currently in the middle of testing the protocol out.

With this new WordPress plugin, the entire IndexNow process is taken out of your hands and automated. The plugin enables automated submission of URLs without the need to register and verify sites with them. All you need to do is install the plugin! Once installed, the plugin will automatically generate and host the necessary API key on the site. The plugin automatically detects updates to content in WordPress and submits these URLs in the background.

Anyone who has done SEO for any length of time will tell you that instant indexing is a huge wish for many, as there’s nothing worse than having outdated information in your search results, simply because the search engines haven’t crawled your site again! While this is limited in search engines right now, it’s a good bet it’ll expand in future, and this is a good time to get in early.