IndexNow Checker
Check your IndexNow key, hostname, verification-file location, and submission setup before notifying search engines.
Check Your IndexNow Setup
What This Checker Tests
This tool checks several common IndexNow configuration problems directly in your browser:
- Whether your website URL is valid
- Whether your IndexNow key has a valid format
- Whether the URL being submitted belongs to the same host
- The expected location of your root verification file
- The IndexNow API URL for your test page
You can then open the verification-file URL directly and confirm that it displays your key.
How to Verify the Key File
For the standard root-file setup, an IndexNow key file should be publicly available at:
https://www.example.com/YOUR-KEY.txtThe file itself should contain the same key.
If opening the URL returns a 404 page, redirects somewhere unexpected, requires authentication, or displays the wrong contents, fix the key-file setup before submitting URLs.
Browser security restrictions can prevent a third-party website from directly reading files on another domain. For that reason, this checker lets you open the verification file directly rather than pretending that every remote file can be fetched reliably from this page.
Common IndexNow Errors
403 Forbidden
This can indicate that the IndexNow key could not be validated. Check that the key file exists and contains the correct key.
422 Unprocessable Entity
This can occur when submitted URLs do not belong to the appropriate host or the key does not match the required setup.
429 Too Many Requests
Too many submissions have been made. Avoid repeatedly submitting unchanged URLs.
200 OK but the page isn't indexed
A 200 response confirms that the IndexNow submission was received successfully. It does not guarantee that the search engine will crawl, index, or rank the page.
Need an IndexNow Key?
Use the free IndieWebTools generator to create your key and download the verification file.
IndexNow Key GeneratorOr read the complete How to Use IndexNow guide .