Microsoft Bing announced updates to IndexNow, highlighting its new compatibility with product schema and integration with Shopify, with Amazon support coming soon. These enhancements enable Bing and other search engines using IndexNow to provide more accurate and timely product information in shopping results and ads.
IndexNow's Role in Real-Time Shopping and Ads
The search environment is rapidly changing with AI-driven discovery and real-time shopping features, making it crucial for merchants to keep product data current. Traditional methods often cause delays in reflecting updates like price changes or restocks, leading to missed sales opportunities. IndexNow addresses this by offering real-time indexing and structured data support, allowing faster visibility of product updates across search, shopping, and ad platforms without needing separate merchant feeds.
Challenges with Traditional Product Feeds
Merchants face difficulties maintaining consistent product data across platforms due to fragmented feeds, inconsistent schemas, and slow crawling. These issues result in outdated information appearing in search results and ads, harming user experience and sales.
How IndexNow Accelerates Indexing
Unlike traditional crawlers that scan sites periodically, IndexNow sends instant notifications to search engines about product changes. When combined with structured product data (e.g., schema.org/Product), it ensures faster and more reliable indexing for organic search, shopping surfaces, and certain ad experiences, reducing the gap between content updates and user visibility.
Essential Structured Data for IndexNow
Structured data helps search engines understand product details in a machine-readable format. Key recommended fields include:
- title (name in JSON-LD)
- description
- price (list/retail price)
- link (product landing page URL)
- image link
- shipping (important for Germany and Austria)
- id (unique product identifier)
- brand, gtin, mpn
- datePublished, dateModified
Optional fields to enhance classification:
- category
- seller (for marketplaces/resellers)
- itemCondition (e.g., NewCondition, UsedCondition)
These fields ensure search engines accurately interpret updates notified via IndexNow, improving indexing speed and result accuracy.
Example Schema Markup
An example provided is a JSON-LD markup for an ENERGY STAR® certified dishwasher, illustrating how structured data can display rich product results like pricing, availability, and ratings, which surface faster when combined with IndexNow.
Benefits of Fresh Product Data in AI Search and Shopping
In AI-driven search, recency and relevance are vital. IndexNow helps by:
- Accelerating visibility of price and inventory changes
- Surfacing new product launches quickly
- Reducing stale listings to build user trust
- Supporting ad accuracy and minimizing disapprovals
- Enhancing ad performance through better landing page and ad copy alignment
This ensures merchants' updates are seen and acted upon promptly, whether for flash sales, restocks, or new products.
Enabling IndexNow and Structured Data
- Shopify users benefit from built-in IndexNow support.
- Custom CMS or ecommerce platforms can implement IndexNow manually using the free protocol and structured data.
- CMS/platform builders are encouraged to integrate native IndexNow support for real-time indexing.
Resources and documentation are available at https://www.bing.com/indexnow and IndexNow.org.
Final Recommendations
Product freshness impacts sales beyond SEO. To maximize IndexNow’s benefits, merchants should:
- Add structured data with schema.org to product pages, including price, availability, product name, and unique identifiers.
- Enable IndexNow if not already supported by their CMS or platform.
These steps ensure faster surfacing of fresh content across search, shopping, and AI-powered discovery, keeping digital storefronts dynamic and responsive to inventory changes.
