How to Add IndexNow in WordPress to Speed Up SEO Results
IndexNow is a new SEO initiative designed by Microsoft to improve the indexing of your website and get indexed faster in search engines. This helps in boosting new content discoverability and speeds up your SEO results.
In this article, we shall describe how to add IndexNow in WordPress to speed up SEO results.
What is IndexNow?
IndexNow is an automatic ping that allows the search engines to know when a post or page (URL) on your website has been added, updated, or deleted. This enables the search engines to update their search results faster, speeding up overall SEO results.
This is a new initiative started by Microsoft, and it’s currently supported by both Microsoft Bing and Yandex. A Google spokesperson has also confirmed that they will be testing the IndexNow protocol due to environmental sustainability.
Presently, all search engines are using the XML sitemaps to find new content and updates. The problem is that it can sometimes take days to weeks for search engines to find new content updates as they visit your website at random intervals.
When a search engine bot visits your sitemap, it makes an effort to visit every single link that it searches on the sitemap as well as every single link that’s within each page. This is a resource-intensive process, and the IndexNow protocol aims to resolve that.

Instead of having search engine bots randomly scanning every single page on your website to look at what’s been updated, IndexNow enables your website to ping the search engine to let them know when a new post is published or updated existing content.
This way they can update their search results faster while helping the environment.
Method 1) How to Add IndexNow in WordPress using AIOSEO
AIOSEO is the best WordPress SEO plugin, which is used by over 3 million websites.
Recently, AIOSEO has become the first WordPress SEO plugin to add IndexNow support for WordPress.

Firstly, install and activate the AIOSEO plugin.
For this tutorial, we are using the premium version of AIOSEO as it has IndexNow and other powerful SEO features.
Once it has been activated, go AIOSEO » Feature Manager from your WordPress dashboard to allow the IndexNow feature.

IndexNow is automatically configured and ready to go – no action is further required.
AIOSEO partnered with Microsoft to create this integration, and they designed the process as beginner-friendly. An IndexNow API key is automatically generated for your website and configured for you, so you don’t have to do anything.
Verify this by going to AIOSEO » General Settings and clicking on the Webmaster Tools tab. There, you’ll see the IndexNow icon, and if you click it you’ll see that the website’s IndexNow API key is already pre-configured.

AIOSEO has many powerful features to improve your WordPress SEO rankings including Link Assistant, redirection manager, and more.
Method 2) Adding the IndexNow in WordPress using the IndexNow plugin
First, install and activate the IndexNow utility plugin.

Once activated, go to Settings » IndexNow in the WordPress dashboard. Click on the Get Started now button, and automatically generate the API key, and everything is configured.
A screen is seen with IndexNow stats like successful URL submissions and more.

Now, you have successfully added IndexNow to WordPress.
Conclusion on IndexNow and Future of SEO
IndexNow is a new initiative and it has already been used by Microsoft Bing and Yandex.
All famous website builder platforms add the IndexNow integrations with AIOSEO making a way for WordPress, while other companies like Duda, Cloudflare, etc have added IndexNow integrations in the recent months.
It’s important to focus that IndexNow is not a replacement for sitemaps. You must have XML sitemaps, video sitemaps, news sitemaps, and other advanced sitemaps to improve your SEO rankings.