django-indexnow

django-indexnow is a minimal Django app that submits updated URLs to IndexNow-compatible search engines.

It is designed to stay small: Django + Python standard library only.

Installation

pip install django-indexnow

Add the app and middleware:

INSTALLED_APPS = [
    # ...
    "django.contrib.sites",
    "indexnow",
]

Expose the app endpoint:

# urls.py
from django.urls import include, path

urlpatterns = [
    # ...
    path("indexnow/", include("indexnow.urls")),
]

Configuration

Supported settings:

INDEXNOW_API_KEY = "your-32-char-hex-key"  # optional; missing/empty disables app
INDEXNOW_ENDPOINT = "https://api.indexnow.org/indexnow"  # optional
INDEXNOW_TIMEOUT = 5  # optional
INDEXNOW_USER_AGENT = "django-indexnow/0.1.0"  # optional
INDEXNOW_DEDUPE_SECONDS = 60  # optional; 0 disables dedupe

Logging uses Python's standard logging. Configure the indexnow logger in your Django LOGGING settings to control emitted levels.

Behavior is automatic:

• If INDEXNOW_API_KEY is set and non-empty, endpoints and submissions are active.
• If it is missing or empty, endpoints return 404 and signal submission silently no-ops.

Key Verification URLs

When enabled, the package serves:

• /indexnow/key.txt via indexnow.urls
• /<INDEXNOW_API_KEY>.txt only if middleware is enabled

Both return plain text with exactly:

<your_key>\n

Optional middleware for root key file

The root key file endpoint (/<INDEXNOW_API_KEY>.txt) is provided by middleware. If you need that endpoint, add:

MIDDLEWARE = [
    # ...
    "indexnow.middleware.IndexNowKeyFileMiddleware",
]

If you do not add this middleware, /indexnow/key.txt still works.

Signal API

Dispatch indexnow.signals.indexnow whenever a URL should be submitted:

from indexnow.signals import indexnow

indexnow.send(sender=BlogPost, url=blog_post.get_absolute_url())

Relative URLs are resolved against https://<site.domain> from Site.objects.get_current(). Absolute URLs are submitted as-is.

post_save / post_delete Integration Example

from django.db.models.signals import post_delete, post_save
from django.dispatch import receiver

from indexnow.signals import indexnow
from .models import BlogPost


@receiver(post_save, sender=BlogPost)
def on_blogpost_saved(sender, instance, **kwargs):
    indexnow.send(sender=sender, url=instance.get_absolute_url())


@receiver(post_delete, sender=BlogPost)
def on_blogpost_deleted(sender, instance, **kwargs):
    indexnow.send(sender=sender, url=instance.get_absolute_url())

Management Command

Generate a key:

python manage.py indexnow_generate_key

Generate and print settings assignment:

python manage.py indexnow_generate_key --set

Running Tests

From the repository root:

make test

Or directly with Django:

env/python/bin/python -m django test --settings=tests.test_settings

CI/CD and Releases

GitHub Actions workflow: .github/workflows/ci-cd.yml

• On pull requests and pushes to main: runs tests and builds/checks artifacts.
• On version tags (examples: 0.1.1, v0.1.1, 0.1.1-rc1, v0.1.1-rc1) or published releases:
  • uploads dist/*.whl and dist/*.tar.gz to the GitHub Release
  • publishes a package image to GitHub Container Registry:
    • ghcr.io/<owner>/django-indexnow:<tag>

Note: GitHub Packages does not provide a Python package registry endpoint. This project publishes Python artifacts to Releases and uses GHCR for registry publishing.

Supported Search Engines

IndexNow is currently supported by engines including Bing, Yandex, Seznam, and Naver.

License

MIT. See LICENSE.