Want to know how to add IndexNow to your WordPress site?
Ask any SEO professional what the most important element of SEO is, and most will probably say it’s getting content indexed.
Thankfully, search engines are advancing in technology, helping to ensure faster indexing of content. This, of course, also means quicker SEO wins for publishers.
That’s all thanks to the IndexNow protocol.
What is IndexNow?
Search engines have two primary functions:
- Crawling: Discovering content on your website.
- Indexing: Storing crawled URLs into a database for faster retrieval.
- Ranking: Serving content to users by rating the best-fit content for a query.
It can take search engines anything from a couple of hours to months to crawl and index content on your website. Of course, this means your SEO efforts only start getting results after indexing.
This is where IndexNow comes into play.
IndexNow is a protocol developed by Bing (in conjunction with Yandex) that automatically pings search engines when you update pages on your website. Every other search engine utilizing the IndexNow protocol is alerted to the changes when this happens. As a result, your content is indexed faster.
Traditionally, search engines discover new content and updates via XML sitemaps. However, you have to wait for search engines to visit your site for that to happen. The problem is that you can never know when they’ll do that as they visit websites randomly.
When search engine spiders visit your sitemap, they follow every single link featured on the sitemap. They also attempt to visit every link on each page of your website. The two biggest problems with this are:
- You have no control over when search engines crawl and index your site.
- As can be expected, this is a resource-intensive process for search engines. Thus the length of time it takes to index a post.
IndexNow was designed to solve these problems as it gives you a level of control concerning when search engines crawl new and updated content. It also reduces the resources needed as search engines only crawl URLs with new or updated content. They don’t have to discover new content by exploring all links on your site.
That’s why every serious website owner or manager must take advantage of the IndexNow protocol.
How to Add IndexNow to Your WordPress Site Using AIOSEO
AIOSEO is one of the best WordPress SEO plugins on the market. Having been in the industry since 2007, AIOSEO is one plugin you can depend on to help you optimize your site for SEO. With over 3 million active installs, it’s definitely an SEO toolkit you can rely on.
That’s why, when it comes to implementing IndexNow on your WordPress website, AIOSEO should be your go-to plugin.
Don’t have the plugin yet?
No problem, simply download it here.
Make sure you’re using version 4.1.7 or newer to access this feature. You also need a Pro or Elite license.
Activating IndexNow
Once you’ve got those preliminary requirements sorted, we can get started with the business of the day — adding IndexNow to your WordPress site. To do that, head over to your AIOSEO dashboard and click on the Features Manager option. This will open up a page with several AIOSEO features you can toggle on or off.
Near the bottom, you’ll find the IndexNow now feature. Toggle the switch to Activated.
After activating IndexNow, you can click on the Manage link, which will take you to AIOSEO’s Webmaster Tools panel.
You’ll find IndexNow listed among the list of webmaster tools. The green tick on the IndexNow icon shows you’ve successfully activated IndexNow. The plugin automatically generates and hosts an API key for you, so you don’t have to go through the complicated process involved in doing so.
That’s it!
You’ve added IndexNow to your WordPress site. Now, every time you update content on your website, search engines are automatically pinged. Your new/updated content will get indexed faster.
Activating IndexNow using the IndexNow Plugin
To make the protocol’s adoption easier, Microsoft created a plugin to help users implement IndexNow.
You can find the plugin in WordPress’s repository. After downloading and activating the IndexNow Plugin, you can get started by going to your WordPress dashboard and clicking on Settings » IndexNow. Next, click on the Get Started button, and an API key will automatically be generated. All your IndexNow settings will also be automatically configured.
Once everything has been successfully implemented, you will see a screen with all your IndexNow stats.
Just like that, you’ve added IndexNow on your site. The protocol will detect any changes to your content and automatically submit the URLs to search engines — without any effort on your part.
IndexNow: Taking SEO into the Future
IndexNow is a protocol that’s already revolutionizing SEO. Early adopters will have an added in gaining mileage faster on search engine results pages (SERPs).
Does this mean sitemaps are now a thing of the past?
Not at all.
IndexNow is not a replacement for sitemaps. You should still generate sitemaps to help search engines crawl your website more efficiently, especially those that are yet to embrace the IndexNow protocol.
That’s one of the major reasons to favor AIOSEO as your tool of choice for implementing IndexNow on your site. With AIOSEO, you have a powerful SEO toolkit that enables you to optimize your site comprehensively. If you haven’t yet, there’s no better time than now to get a premium license of AIOSEO.
Hello,
I am using all in one SEO plugin it is very easy for use. quick indexing article is too much amazing for reading and work. thanks for sharing this information it is very helpful for us!