Claim: The Indexing API gets any page indexed fast
Verdict False
Google's Indexing API only works for pages with JobPosting or BroadcastEvent embedded in a VideoObject. Submissions face spam detection, the default quota is 200 publish requests per day, and quota abuse can cost you access. For other pages, use sitemaps and URL Inspection.
The claim
Section titled “The claim”“Submit your new pages through Google’s Indexing API and they’ll be indexed within hours.”
Why the verdict
Section titled “Why the verdict”What to use instead
Section titled “What to use instead”- Sitemaps for many URLs (XML sitemaps).
- URL Inspection’s request indexing for a few URLs, with its own daily limit (URL Inspection tool).
- IndexNow for search engines that support it; Google isn’t one of them (XML sitemaps vs IndexNow).
What the verdict does not say
Section titled “What the verdict does not say”It does not say the API is useless. Job posting and livestream pages are short-lived, and for them the API is the documented way to get updates crawled quickly.