Microsoft Bing, Yandex Create New Search Protocol
Microsoft maintained that IndexNow is an initiative for both a more efficient and open internet.
Microsoft Bing and Russian search engine Yandex on Monday announced a new protocol designed to speed up search updates of websites.
Called IndexNow, the protocol uses an API to allow websites to easily notify search engines whenever content is created, updated, or deleted. Once the search engines are notified of updates they can quickly crawl and reflect the website changes in their index and search results.
“Ensuring timely information is available for searchers is critical,” Microsoft explained in its Bing Blog.
“Yet historically,” it continued, “one of the biggest pain points for website owners has been to have search engines quickly discover and consider their latest website changes. It can take days or even weeks for new URLs to be discovered and indexed in search engines, resulting in loss of potential traffic, customers and even sales.”