Hello, we apologize for the issue you are facing with the IndexNow API and the 404 error. A 404 error typically indicates that the requested URL was not found on the server. This could be due to several reasons, such as the URL being incorrect or the page not existing anymore.
To troubleshoot this issue, please ensure that:
- The URL you are trying to submit is correct and accessible.
- The page exists and is not deleted or moved.
- There are no restrictions (like robots.txt) preventing search engines from accessing the URL.
If you continue to experience this issue, we recommend checking the history of your submissions in Rank Math by navigating to Rank Math SEO → Instant Indexing → History in your WordPress dashboard. This will help you see the response codes related to your submissions.
If the problem persists, please reply to this ticket, and a human agent from the Rank Math Support team will assist you further. Thank you for raising this concern!
Sources:
How to Fix 429 Error with IndexNow API » Rank Math
Hello,
Thank you for contacting support.
If you are getting the 404 error it means that the URLs are not in the Indexing API. Since the API is only for two types of websites (job posting and live streams) and goes through rigorous spam detection due to recent changes in Google, it’s much more difficult to get URLs into the API.
So, unless you have one of the website types we mentioned and the content is unique, you won’t be able to use this feature consistently and you shouldn’t as the API was never intended for it as mentioned in our own documentation.
The bottom line is that our submissions to the API are working fine, but if the pages are not accepted into it because of guidelines issues, there’s nothing we can do.
The Instant Indexing plugin was put through rigorous testing and we can see the submissions are working, but we cannot force Google to accept them as mentioned multiple times before.
Thank you.
Dear Miguel,
Thanks for your response. However, your response does not solve my problem.
We configured IndexNow as per your documentation and instructions.
Only for a few URLs, we are getting the 404 Error, others are working fine.
“error”: {
“code”: 404,
“message”: “Requested entity was not found.”,
“errors”: [
{
“message”: “Requested entity was not found.”,
“domain”: “global”,
“reason”: “notFound”
If you need anything further investigated, please let me know.
So, out of the total 327 URLs, only 42 are facing this issue. Others are all perfectly fine
Hello,
That means that those URLs was still not processed by the Indexing API from Google. It’s important to note that the requirements for that have changed and now the URLs go through rigorous spam detection.
Besides that, the guidelines now state that this is exclusive to a particular set of websites, so if your website doesn’t fall under that category or is considered spammy the submission will go through but the URLs will never be parsed by the API.
You can check the full guidelines here: https://developers.google.com/search/apis/indexing-api/v3/quickstart
The use of the indexing API is actually intended for JobPosting and BroadcastEvent embedded in VideoObject websites. Google didn’t intend its use for news or blog sites.
We also gave this warning in our documentation.
We hope this helps.
Thanks.
Hello,
Since we did not hear back from you for 15 days, we are assuming that you found the solution. We are closing this support ticket.
If you still need assistance or any other help, please feel free to open a new support ticket, and we will be more than happy to assist.
Thank you.
