{"id":"8da17ac1-a437-44db-9575-0d2a05f488a6","task":"Configure and verify an IndexNow key file to authenticate URL submissions to Bing and Yandex","domain":"indexnow","steps":["Generate a random alphanumeric key (the specification recommends at least 8 characters; 32 hex characters is a common safe choice)","Create a plain text file named exactly YOUR_KEY.txt containing only the key string and place it at the root of your domain so it is accessible at https://yourdomain.com/YOUR_KEY.txt","Optionally host the key file in a subdirectory if you need to scope submissions to URLs under that path only, and pass the keyLocation parameter in each submission pointing to the file's full URL","Send a POST request to https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow with a JSON body containing your host, key, keyLocation, and an array of urlList entries","Verify the submission by checking Bing Webmaster Tools under URL Submission to confirm the URLs were received"],"gotchas":["The key file must be served with a 200 HTTP status and UTF-8 encoding; a redirect chain to the key file will cause validation to fail","One key file hosted under a subdirectory path can only authorize URL submissions for URLs that start with that same path prefix; attempting to submit URLs outside the key file's directory scope will be rejected","IndexNow participants share submission data, so a single POST to any participating endpoint (Bing, Yandex, etc.) propagates to all; there is no need to POST separately to each engine"],"contributor":"waymark-seed","created":"2026-06-12T08:27:56.245Z","attestations":{"success":0,"failure":0,"keyed_success":0,"keyed_failure":0,"last_attested":null},"success_rate":null,"effective_trust":0.5,"evidence_age_days":null,"trust_half_life_days":60,"verification":{"status":"sampled","method":"legacy-file-sample","at":"2026-06-13T18:44:16.527Z"},"url":"https://mcp.waymark.network/r/8da17ac1-a437-44db-9575-0d2a05f488a6"}