IndexNow Checker That Verifies Your Key File, Submissions and Bing Indexing

How do I verify my IndexNow key file?

Your key file lives at your domain followed by the key and .txt, for example https://example.com/your-key.txt, unless you declared a different keyLocation. It must return HTTP 200 to anonymous visitors, be UTF-8 text, and contain the key and nothing else. The key itself has to be 8 to 128 characters of letters, numbers and dashes.

The traps are almost never the key. They are a security plugin or a CDN challenge that blocks the file for bots, a redirect to a login page, a key file uploaded to a subfolder (which only covers URLs inside that folder), or a file that picked up a byte order mark or a trailing comment when someone edited it.

• Open the key URL logged out, in a private window.
• Confirm the response is 200, not a redirect.
• Confirm the body is exactly the key, with no extra text.
• Keep the file at the root unless you only submit URLs from one folder.

What do IndexNow response codes 200 and 202 mean?

Both mean the submission was received. IndexNow.org describes 200 as the URL submitted successfully and 202 as URL received with key validation pending. A 202 is normal on a first submission, because the engine has not fetched your key file yet. If later submissions start returning 403, the key file is the problem.

Neither code says anything about indexing. They confirm delivery, the same way a tracking number confirms a parcel left the warehouse.

Where can I see IndexNow submissions in Bing Webmaster Tools?

Bing Webmaster Tools has an IndexNow section, which Bing introduced as IndexNow Insights in March 2024. It covers your latest 1,000 submitted URLs with their index status, first indexed date and whether they were submitted late, plus an Important URLs Missing tab for links that get clicked but were not sent through IndexNow.

It is a good free report for one site. It needs a verified Bing Webmaster Tools property per site, shows only what reached Bing, and cannot tell you anything about Google. Agencies running many client sites usually end up opening it one property at a time.

Why are my IndexNow submissions not indexed?

Because submission only asks the engine to look. IndexNow.org says that "Submitting a URL does not guarantee immediate indexing," and the engine still decides based on crawl scheduling and quality. A page that carries noindex, canonicalizes to another URL, redirects, or returns an error will be received happily and never indexed.

This is the gap Indexing closes. For every URL that is still missing after submission we run the technical checks that explain it (HTTP status, noindex in the tag or the X-Robots-Tag header, canonical, robots.txt) and resubmit only the pages that can actually be indexed.

Does IndexNow work for Google?

No. Google does not use IndexNow, so a perfect IndexNow setup tells you nothing about Google. Submissions are shared among participating engines such as Bing, Yandex, Seznam, Naver and Yep, which is why one request is enough for all of them.

For Google you still need an accurate sitemap and a way to see which URLs Google holds. Indexing puts the Google status next to the Bing status for the same URL, so a page missing from both points to a site problem, and a page missing from one points to that engine.

Is a free IndexNow checker enough?

For a one-time setup check, often yes. IndexerNow, for example, publishes a free checker that tests key format, reachability, file content and that the file is served as text over HTTPS, and it says openly that it "sends no URLs to any search engine." Use it when you first create a key.

It is not enough once IndexNow is running on a site that matters to revenue. Keys get deleted in migrations, firewalls change, and plugins keep reporting success to nobody. If the question is whether last month's 800 product pages made it into Bing, you need submission logs and an index check per URL, not a one-time file test.

Who this is for, and which plan fits

In-house SEOs and site owners who publish often and rely on IndexNow for Bing and Copilot visibility, developers who built IndexNow into a custom stack and want proof it keeps working, and agencies who need to show clients which pages were submitted and which were indexed.

Starter is $29 a month billed annually ($59 month to month) for about 2,000 URLs on one site with daily monitoring. Growth is $47 a month billed annually for about 25,000 URLs, hourly monitoring and automatic resubmission. Agency is $119 a month billed annually for about 150,000 URLs across many sites, API access and white label reports.