Hello,
Thank you for contacting Rank Math and bringing your concern to our attention.
Yes, you should submit your old posts as enabling/checking the box in the IndexNow applies to new posts only.
Please note that the Automatic URL submission only affects your new post or if you have modified existing posts on your site. Here’s a link for more information:
https://rankmath.com/kb/how-to-use-indexnow/#automatic-url-submission
Moreover, does submitting thousands of urls will not cause any penalties from Google?
Currently, the IndexNow feature does not have any known limitation to the URLs that can be submitted per day. But it is always advised not to exploit this benefit as it could exhaust the quota limit for the number of publishing requests per day.
In case you wanted to submit more than the limit per day, then I can suggest that you request more quota to serve the requests that your site is making by following the steps on the link below:
https://developers.google.com/search/apis/indexing-api/v3/quota-pricing
Hope that helps.
Thank you.
Hi Reinelle,
Thanks for you reply.
Everything is clear regarding the first part (the box in the IndexNow and the new urls submission).
Regarding your Instant indexing and its relationship to Google, this is where I found myself confused.
I thought IndexNow was independent of Google IndexingAPI and was originally pinging Bing and Yandex to let them know that some urls need to be (re)crawled. At their discretion to do so after that.
What I do not understand is why you reference Google’s Indexing API when it explicit says:
Currently, the Indexing API can only be used to crawl pages with either JobPosting or BroadcastEvent embedded in a VideoObject.
Many sites are clearly not eligible to as they are not is the right niche.
So does your Instant indexing will send a manual urls submission to Google’s index API or only to IndexNow?
Thanks for clarifying this point Reinelle 🙂
Nathan
Hello,
The Google API officially supports pages containing Job Posting and Livestream structured data, and it is recommended to use only on such websites.
However, from our internal tests and our public beta, it seems that Google crawls, indexes (if the content is original, new, and helpful), and follow links on any page you submit through the API, regardless of its structured data.
So does your Instant indexing will send a manual urls submission to Google’s index API or only to IndexNow?
If you’re using both of them, they have specific option/action to submit the URLs
In this way, you have the option to choose whether to submit the URL/s in either one of them on the settings.
Hope that helps.
Thank you.
Hi Reinelle,
Thanks for the reply.
I don’t understand where you see this screen with the options.
I only see the textarea to submits the urls and I do not see all the options you have.
I am using the free version of RankMath so far and I’d like to submit only to IndexNow and not to Google API.
With the free version, is it ok to send only to IndexNow and not to Google indexing API?
Thanks a lot,
Nathan
Hello,
Could you please share a screenshot of the options you’re seeing so we can check as well? You can use this tool and share the generated link here.
Yes, you can use IndexNow feature only without submitting your URLs in Google Indexing API.
Looking forward to helping you.
Thank you.
Hello,
From the screenshot, it only shows the IndexNow settings that comes with the Rank Math plugin.
If you have not installed the Instant Indexing plugin we have mentioned in our guide here, then you won’t see the settings for Google’s Instant Indexing.
Hope that clears up the confusion.
Thank you.
Awesome, I understand the confusion now!
Thanks Reinelle
Hey Reinelle,
Actually, I have a last question.
I did not activate the structured data add-on so far.
Will do it.
Would you recommend to activate and add the relevant structure data then to send all urls to IndexNow or would it be possible to send all urls first and later work on the structured data?
We have around 7000 urls to send so I have to work on a way to automate the structured data first to be able to scale this job.
As for the instant indexing plugin, I will do that later after the IndexNow.
Thanks again for your time!
Nathan
Hello,
If you are enabling the auto submission, the IndexNow feature will automatically submit the URL upon update and this includes when you add the schema structure. Unfortunately, we don’t have the option to schedule instant indexing submissions.
I would just suggest keeping submitting the updated page in a minimal way and you can allow the search engines to just discover the changes to the rest of your posts/pages.
Hope that helps and please do not hesitate to let us know if you need my assistance with anything else.
Hello,
Glad that helped.
Please feel free to reach out to us again in case you need any other assistance.
We are here to help.
Thank you.
