Microsoft and Yandex have announced a new website indexing initiative called IndexNow.
IndexNow, which was launched on 18th October 2021, is a protocol that enables website developers and owners to easily notify search engines of new content, site changes and updates, and to instantly have their websites indexed according to this information.
The IndexNow innovation is an open protocol and can be adopted by all search engines, which means that it is not restricted to Microsoft Bing or Yandex.
Presently, these two search engines are the only ones that use this protocol, but Microsoft issued a statement in which it emphasised that it is open to all search engines.
When asked exactly how IndexNow will assist website visibility on search engines, Microsoft responded that it allows “websites to easily notify search engines whenever their website content is created, updated, or deleted”.
The company went on to explain that this initiative aims to establish more efficient search engine functionality when it comes to the crawling and indexing of websites.
It lessens dependency on search engine spiders, which are designed to crawl every URL they encounter.
Microsoft indicated that by incorporating this protocol into websites, owners and developers bypass needless and time-consuming crawling by directly alerting search engines of URL (uniform resource locator) changes, thus eliminating the need for exploratory test crawls.
The tech giant justified the necessity of this protocol by indicating that it takes days or even weeks for search engine spiders to detect and index new URLs or changes to existing URLs.
This time lapse results in website traffic losses, which in turn affect the acquisition and retention of customers and sales.
Industry professionals discovered that it is easy and straightforward to use this protocol.
Website owners and developers simply need to create a key on their servers and then post the intended URL to the participating search engine.
Options include submitting a single URL or multiple URLs via an API (application programming interface) call.
Content marketing experts welcomed this protocol as a tool to help improve and promote the visibility of websites.
These experts cited the rapid digitisation of businesses as one of the reasons why a protocol such as this would be useful to aid the operations of companies.
Analyses indicate that the COVID-19 pandemic forced many companies to explore alternative routes of doing business, and the internet provides the ideal platform to sustain viability and operations.
A website’s search engine rankings drive a company’s virtual visibility and its potential to attract new customers and keep existing ones.
Effective website indexing enables search engines to see and boost your website.
This affects a website’s rankings and overall performance in a search engine.
Google, the world’s most prominent and most used search engine, has not given any indications as to whether it will be incorporating IndexNow.
Experts do, however, point out that this is a recently launched protocol with obvious benefits and that it only makes sense that other search engines will embrace it in the future.
Partner with an established and professional content marketing agency to explore the incorporation of initiatives such as these in your website functionalities.
