Indexing
Tell search engines about new pages with IndexNow and the Google Indexing API, and read Google's actual verdict on each page from Search Console.
Indexing
A page Google has not indexed earns nothing, however good it is. Visibility Flux covers both halves of the problem: telling search engines a page exists, and finding out what they decided about it.
Instant indexing (free)
IndexNow
IndexNow is an open protocol that notifies Bing, Yandex, Naver and Seznam at once. Switch it on in Visibility Flux → Settings → General and there is nothing else to configure — Visibility Flux generates the required key file and serves it automatically.
From then on, publishing or updating a page sends its address to IndexNow.
What is sent: the page URL, your host name, and the generated key. No content, no visitor data.
A page marked noindex is never submitted. Announcing a page you have deliberately hidden is the opposite of what you asked for, so the veto is absolute.
IndexNow does not include Google, which does not participate in the protocol.
Google Indexing API (Pro)
Google's Indexing API accepts direct submissions. Google documents it as intended for job postings and live-stream pages, and treats other submissions as a hint rather than a command — useful, not a guarantee.
Setup needs a Google Cloud service account with the Indexing API enabled, added as an owner of your Search Console property. Paste its JSON key into Visibility Flux → Settings → General. The same noindex veto applies.
Index status (Pro)
Problem Map → Indexing answers the question submission cannot: what does Google actually say about this page?
It reads Search Console's URL Inspection API and joins the verdict to your performance data — so a page losing clicks that Google never indexed finally becomes visible, instead of sitting silently in your Problem Map looking like a CTR problem.
What you see
| Column | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Page | The URL, with its clicks and impressions from your import |
| Verdict | Google's own state — indexed, crawled but not indexed, discovered, excluded |
| Canonical | The URL Google chose to credit |
| Last crawled | When Google last fetched it |
The canonical conflict flag is the one worth watching. A page can look perfectly healthy while Google has decided a different URL is the real one — so every link and every ranking signal is being credited elsewhere. Nothing else in WordPress will tell you this.
Connecting your Google account
Visibility Flux uses your own Google OAuth client. Nothing passes through our servers, and no Visibility Flux account is involved.
- Open Google Cloud Console and create a project (or pick an existing one)
- Enable the Google Search Console API
- Create an OAuth 2.0 Client ID of type Web application
- Copy the redirect URI shown in Visibility Flux and paste it into the client's Authorised redirect URIs
- Paste the client ID and secret into Visibility Flux, then click Connect Google account
- Approve the consent screen, choose the Search Console property matching this site, and run Check indexing
The scope requested is webmasters.readonly — read-only. Visibility Flux cannot change
anything in your Search Console.
Google issues a refresh token once, at consent. Visibility Flux stores it and reuses it, so you connect once and stay connected. If you ever revoke access from your Google account, reconnect through the same button.
Disconnect removes the stored tokens and revokes the grant at Google's end.
Quota
Google allows a limited number of URL inspections per property per day, resetting at midnight Pacific time. Visibility Flux checks your highest-value pages first and stops cleanly when the quota is reached, telling you so rather than failing silently. Run it again the next day to continue.
Which to use
| You want | Use |
|---|---|
| New pages found faster on Bing and Yandex | IndexNow — free, zero setup |
| To push a page to Google directly | Indexing API (Pro) |
| To know what Google decided | Index status (Pro) |
The first two are pushes. The third is the feedback. Submitting without ever checking the result is the part most setups are missing.
A free alternative
If you want to spot-check a handful of URLs without connecting anything, the free Google Index Checker does that in a browser — no API, no OAuth, no setup. The Indexing tab is the same idea at site scale, joined to your Search Console performance data and updated on demand.