How to Connect IndexNow for Bing Webmaster Tools?

Let’s first figure out whether connect IndexNow for Webmaster Tools is actually necessary — and if so, why. StatCounter shows Bing’s growth from 3.89% in April 2025 to 5.13% in April 2026. That’s roughly 30% growth, likely driven in part by Yandex’s declining share — it seems the occupiers’ experiments with internet restrictions have borne fruit, and today Yandex holds only 1.19% compared to 2.53% a year ago.

It’s also worth remembering that Bing’s search index powers well-known search engines like Yahoo Search and DuckDuckGo, as well as less widespread ones like the “eco-friendly” Ecosia.

It’s worth noting that in the US and China, Bing’s market share is significantly higher than in Europe — and Ukraine in particular. Though if Google doesn’t start changing course, it may lose ground in Ukraine. Personally, I think Google has degraded considerably since it began experimenting with AI-powered search (not to be confused with Gemini). It can serve Ukrainian users results from the occupying country or in the occupier’s language — despite all my interfaces being set to Ukrainian or English, and despite me using only those two languages.

For example: if I want to read about which Ukrainian missile model struck a Russian military factory on April 5, 2026 — I have no interest in what Russian officials think or what Russian websites say. I want to read about it in Ukrainian or English, not Russian under any circumstances. These feelings may be difficult to convey to those who haven’t had a Russian missile fall nearby — but that’s our reality.

Anyway, I’ve gone off on a bit of a Google tangent. The point is that globally, roughly 10% of search traffic is non-Google. Think that’s negligible?

AI factor

Let’s look at AI assistant usage. At the time of writing: ChatGPT has 900 million users, Google Gemini 750 million, Microsoft Copilot 420 million, and Claude 200 million.

Among major AI assistants, Copilot holds around 15% (including smaller ones like Grok). That’s a considerably higher share than in search — and we’re all watching AI assistant usage grow rapidly. Bing Webmaster Tools offers something Google Search Console doesn’t yet: a dedicated AI Performance section.

So if you think 10% and 15% are numbers worth ignoring — you can stop reading here. If you think they’re worth your attention and the AI Performance section looks useful — it’s time to give Bing some thought. I won’t walk through adding a site to Bing Webmaster Tools — it’s a straightforward process anyone can handle. Instead, let’s get to the main point.

How to connect IndexNow for Webmaster Tools?

There are several options — from a WordPress plugin to a Cloudflare setting.

If you ask Copilot, it will most likely recommend the IndexNow plugin for WordPress.
Personally, I prefer not to install plugins when a couple dozen lines of code will do the job. Besides, a plugin with a 3-out-of-5 rating in the repository doesn’t inspire confidence — it may have quality issues.

Another option is for Cloudflare users — there’s a dedicated setting there, but since not everyone uses Cloudflare, it’s not a universal solution.

You can also handle this via server configuration (Nginx/Apache), but since not everyone uses a VPS or VDS, that’s not universal either.

For me, the best approach is custom PHP code. Once you’re registered, you’ll need a GUID (Globally Unique Identifier) — a 128-bit integer used to identify resources. 128 bits is large enough, and the generation algorithm so unique, that if you generated 1,000,000,000 GUIDs per second for a year, the probability of a duplicate would be just 50%. You can get one at https://www.guidgenerator.com/.

On Linux/macOS, open Terminal and run:

openssl rand -hex 16

On Windows, use PowerShell:

[System.Guid]::NewGuid().ToString("N")

Or just ask Copilot or another AI assistant. Save your GUID to a text file with a name of your choosing. In my example, it’s yourfilename.txt.

Copy the file to your server – don’t forget to change the exact path in the code. In my example it’s yoursite.com/yourfilename.txt, yours may have a different path. Then add the following code to your functions.php:

function send_to_indexnow($post_ID, $post, $update) {

    // Only for published posts
    if ( $post->post_status !== 'publish' ) return;

    // Skip autosaves and revisions
    if ( wp_is_post_autosave($post_ID) || wp_is_post_revision($post_ID) ) return;

    $url = get_permalink($post_ID);
    $key = '******'; // your GUID
    $keyLocation = 'https://yoursite.com/yourfilename.txt'; // path to your file

    $payload = json_encode([
        'host' => 'yoursite.com', // your site
        'key' => $key,
        'keyLocation' => $keyLocation,
        'urlList' => [$url]
    ]);

    wp_remote_post('https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow', [
        'headers' => ['Content-Type' => 'application/json'],
        'body' => $payload,
        'timeout' => 3, // Important: don't block WP for too long
    ]);
}

add_action('save_post', 'send_to_indexnow', 10, 3);

The code is compact and well-commented, so I don’t think it needs much explanation. It’s also fully functional — it won’t ping Bing during autosaves, draft saves, or other unnecessary operations. I intentionally used the save_post hook instead of publish_post because I want to ping Bing not only when a post is created, but also when it’s updated.

This same code runs on this site. In a few months I plan to check whether it’s brought additional visitors from Bing and Copilot. If you have questions or suggestions — feel free to leave a comment.