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Automating IndexNow Submissions for Obsidian Quartz on GitHub Pages

Context: Summary of a chat conversation about setting up and automating URL submissions to search engines (primarily via IndexNow) for an Obsidian Quartz blog hosted on GitHub Pages.

Goal: To understand manual IndexNow submission, automate it via GitHub Actions after deployment, and know how to submit URLs to Google.

1. IndexNow Setup & Manual Submission (Bing, Yandex, etc.)

A. Initial Setup

1. Generate Key: Use Bing Webmaster Tools to generate an API key.
2. Host Key: Place the key value in a .txt file accessible at the root of the domain (e.g., https://masri.blog/YOUR_KEY_FILENAME.txt). Use this filename as the keyLocation.

B. Manual Submission Methods (curl)

• Single URL (GET):

  curl "https://<SEARCH_ENGINE_ENDPOINT>/indexnow?url=URL_TO_SUBMIT&keyLocation=YOUR_KEY_LOCATION_URL"

• Bulk URLs (POST):

  # Replace ... with actual host, keyLocation, key (optional), and URLs
  curl -X POST "https://<SEARCH_ENGINE_ENDPOINT>/indexnow" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json; charset=utf-8" \
  -d '{
    "host": "masri.blog",
    "key": "YOUR_ACTUAL_KEY", # Optional if keyLocation is used & valid
    "keyLocation": "YOUR_KEY_LOCATION_URL",
    "urlList": [
      "[https://masri.blog/url-1](https://masri.blog/url-1)",
      "[https://masri.blog/url-2](https://masri.blog/url-2)"
    ]
  }'

• Common curl Error: InvalidRequestParameters or curl: (3) errors often occurred due to missing double quotes (") around each URL within the "urlList": [...] array in the JSON payload.

C. Verification (Bing Webmaster Tools)

• Check the IndexNow section in BWT for submission statistics and confirmation.
• Use the URL Inspection tool on submitted URLs. Look for a recent “Last crawl” date as an indicator that the IndexNow ping triggered a crawl attempt.

D. Troubleshooting 4xx Errors in BWT

• Meaning: “Discovered but not crawled” with a “4xx error” means Bingbot tried to fetch the URL (likely after the IndexNow ping) but the server responded with an error (e.g., 404 Not Found).
• Steps:
  1. Verify the URL loads correctly in your browser first.
  2. Check the file exists in the correct path in your GitHub repo (on the branch GH Pages uses).
  3. Check GH Pages deployment status for errors.

2. Google Search Console Indexing

• No General IndexNow Equivalent: Google does not have a public API like IndexNow for submitting any URL.
• Method 1: URL Inspection Tool:
  • Log in to GSC, select property.
  • Paste URL into the top inspection bar.
  • Click “Request Indexing”. (Best for individual new/updated pages).
• Method 2: Sitemaps:
  • Ensure Quartz generates sitemap.xml.
  • Submit the sitemap URL (e.g., https://masri.blog/sitemap.xml) in the GSC “Sitemaps” section. (Essential for overall site discovery).
• Indexing API: Not suitable for general blog posts. Only for JobPosting, BroadcastEvent, or specific update/removal scenarios.

3. Automating IndexNow with GitHub Actions

A. Goal

Trigger URL submissions to multiple IndexNow endpoints automatically after a successful deployment to GitHub Pages.

B. Workflow Modification

• Add a new job (indexnow-submit) to the existing deployment workflow (deploy.yml).
• Make it dependent on the deploy job (needs: deploy, if: success()).
• Use GitHub Secrets to store the API key (secrets.INDEXNOW_KEY).

C. Job Steps (indexnow-submit)

1. Install Tools: curl, libxml2-utils (for xmllint).
2. Fetch Sitemap: curl the live sitemap.xml from the deployed site.
3. Extract URLs: Parse the sitemap using xmllint --xpath "//url/loc/text()" sitemap.xml.
4. Format JSON: Convert the extracted URLs into a JSON array string ["url1","url2",...].
5. Submit: Loop through defined ENDPOINTS (Bing, Yandex, Seznam) and send the POST request using curl, including host, key, keyLocation, and the generated urlList.

D. Example Workflow Snippet (The indexnow-submit Job)

  indexnow-submit:
    needs: deploy
    if: success()
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    name: Submit URLs to IndexNow
    env:
      HOST: "masri.blog" # Replace if needed
      KEY_LOCATION: "[https://masri.blog/7e3e0fbe3ca044a89a6a3d6c100bb091.txt](https://masri.blog/7e3e0fbe3ca044a89a6a3d6c100bb091.txt)" # Replace if needed
      INDEXNOW_API_KEY: <span class="math-inline">\{\{ secrets\.INDEXNOW\_KEY \}\}
ENDPOINTS\: \>\-
\[https\://www\.bing\.com/indexnow\]\(https\://www\.bing\.com/indexnow\)
\[https\://yandex\.com/indexnow\]\(https\://yandex\.com/indexnow\)
\[https\://search\.seznam\.cz/indexnow\]\(https\://search\.seznam\.cz/indexnow\)
steps\:
\- name\: Install curl and XML tools
run\: sudo apt\-get update && sudo apt\-get install \-y curl libxml2\-utils
\- name\: Fetch Live Sitemap
run\: curl \-sL "https\://</span>{HOST}/sitemap.xml" -o sitemap.xml
      - name: Check if sitemap was fetched
        # ... (error checking) ...
      - name: Extract URLs and Format JSON
        id: format_urls
        run: |
          # ... (xmllint command and bash loop to format URL_LIST_JSON) ...
          echo "json_list=[${URL_LIST_JSON}]" >> <span class="math-inline">GITHUB\_OUTPUT
\- name\: Submit URLs to IndexNow Endpoints
run\: \|
\# \.\.\. \(construct JSON\_PAYLOAD using env vars and steps\.format\_urls\.outputs\.json\_list\) \.\.\.
\# \.\.\. \(echo "</span>{ENDPOINTS}" | xargs ... curl command) ...

4. Testing the GitHub Action

• Branch Testing: Create a branch, add changes, push, check “Actions” tab logs.

• Dry Run: Modify curl command on test branch to echo instead of executing.

• Manual Trigger: Add workflow_dispatch: to on: section.

Reference:

• Documentation IndexNow.org
• https://www.bing.com/indexnow/getstarted
• https://search.google.com/search-console/about

Date: 2025-04-13 Tags: IndexNow SEO GitHubActions ObsidianQuartz Bing GoogleSearchConsole curl Automation Troubleshooting