Upaccn Health Check for IndexNow

Description

IndexNow is easy to enable but difficult to troubleshoot when submissions fail, Bing Webmaster Tools looks stale, or a key cannot be verified.

Upaccn Health Check for IndexNow adds a focused diagnostic screen under Tools → IndexNow Health. It does not replace your SEO or IndexNow submission plugin. Instead, it independently checks the protocol path so you can separate a WordPress/public-routing problem from an IndexNow response.

Version 0.1.0 can:

• Show WordPress search-engine visibility and public URL consistency.
• Create a dedicated diagnostic IndexNow key route without writing a physical file.
• Detect a small curated set of active plugins that may provide IndexNow functionality.
• Verify that the diagnostic key route is publicly reachable and returns the expected plain-text value.
• Check the public homepage for obvious noindex evidence.
• Send one administrator-triggered test notification for the homepage to the generic IndexNow endpoint when prerequisites pass.
• Explain HTTP 200, 202, 400, 403, 422, 429, transport failures, and unexpected responses in plain language.
• Copy a privacy-conscious support report without exposing the diagnostic key.

Nothing runs automatically. Opening the dashboard makes no outbound request. The live test only runs after an administrator explicitly clicks Run live IndexNow test.

IndexNow acceptance does not guarantee crawling, indexing, ranking, or traffic. HTTP 200 only confirms that the endpoint received the notification.

External services

Upaccn Health Check for IndexNow uses the public IndexNow protocol only when an administrator explicitly clicks Run live IndexNow test. It does not contact IndexNow during installation, activation, normal page loads, or simply by opening the IndexNow Health screen.

When the live test reaches the final protocol step, the plugin sends one HTTPS request to the generic IndexNow endpoint at https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow. The request contains:

• the site’s public homepage URL;
• the public hostname derived from that URL;
• a plugin-generated diagnostic key; and
• the public URL where that diagnostic key can be verified.

The diagnostic key is a protocol verification value, not a WordPress password or account credential. The plugin does not send visitor data, customer data, post contents, cookies, WordPress user details, or credentials to IndexNow. As with any HTTPS request, the receiving service can observe the originating server IP address.

IndexNow is a third-party protocol/service operated by its sponsors and participating search engines. Submitted URLs may be shared among participating search engines as part of the protocol.

• IndexNow documentation: https://www.indexnow.org/documentation
• IndexNow terms and privacy information: https://www.indexnow.org/terms

Before contacting IndexNow, the live test also makes HTTPS requests to this WordPress site’s own public diagnostic-key URL and public homepage. Those are requests back to the site being diagnosed, not third-party telemetry.