No. An indexing request is a notification: it tells a search engine that a page exists or has changed. It can speed up discovery, but it guarantees neither that the page is indexed nor that an AI answer will recommend your brand. Google and IndexNow both say this in their own documentation, linked below.
This post is part of Zia Wasi's research on AI search. Zia Wasi is co-founder of Depra AI and a GEO researcher; GEO, or generative engine optimization, is the work of getting a brand named in AI answers. He collected the sources from public vendor documentation on 13 October 2026, and each one was opened again on 14 October 2026 for this post.
So send the requests, because they are cheap. Then spend most of your effort on crawler access, readable pages and what other sites say about you.
What does an indexing request actually do?
It sends a signal and nothing more. The engine still decides whether to crawl, index and show the page. An AI answer is a further step.
Split the journey into stages, because each needs its own evidence.
- Submitted: you sent a sitemap, a recrawl request or an IndexNow ping.
- Crawled: the engine's bot fetched the page. Your server logs show this.
- Indexed: the engine stored the page. Google Search Console confirms this.
- Found in results: the page came back for a real query.
- Cited or recommended: an AI answer linked the page or named your brand. Only the answers show this.
How do Google recrawl requests work, and is there a quota?
Google offers two routes for pages you own: the URL Inspection tool in Search Console for single URLs, and a sitemap for many URLs. Google says there is a quota for submitting individual URLs, and that asking several times for the same URL will not get it crawled any faster (Google Search Central, checked 14 Oct 2026).
Google also says crawling can take from a few days to a few weeks, and that a request does not guarantee inclusion in search results instantly or at all (Google Search Central, checked 14 Oct 2026).
This matters for AI because Google AI Overviews and AI Mode use Google Search. Google says a page must be indexed and eligible to show in Search with a snippet to appear as a supporting link in those features, with no further technical requirement (Google Search Central, checked 14 Oct 2026). So indexing is the entry ticket for Google's AI features, not a promise of a link.
When you check the result, note that the URL Inspection API reports the indexed version and cannot run a live test (Search Console API, checked 14 Oct 2026), and that site: results are not a complete list of indexed pages (Google Search Central, checked 14 Oct 2026).
Can the Google Indexing API speed up product or blog pages?
No. Google says the Indexing API can only be used for pages with JobPosting, or BroadcastEvent embedded in a VideoObject, which means job listings and livestream pages (Google Search Central, checked 14 Oct 2026). It is not a general route for product, service or blog pages.
Even for those pages, a successful response means Google may try to recrawl the URL soon, and the status call only confirms that a request was received (Google Search Central, checked 14 Oct 2026).
Which engines does IndexNow reach?
IndexNow is a shared protocol for telling search engines that a URL was added, changed or deleted. On 14 October 2026 its participant registry listed seven: Bing, Yandex, Seznam, Naver, Yep, the Internet Archive and Amazonbot (IndexNow registry, checked 14 Oct 2026). Google, Brave, OpenAI, Anthropic and Perplexity were not on the list.
A submission to one participant is shared with the others, and IndexNow says a submission does not guarantee indexing (IndexNow FAQ, checked 14 Oct 2026). An HTTP 200 reply means the submission was accepted, not that the page is indexed. So one IndexNow ping is not a submission to every AI engine.
Brave runs its own index and has a Submit URL form for asking it to fetch a page again. Brave says its crawler does not advertise a user agent of its own, and that it will not crawl a page that Googlebot is not allowed to crawl (Brave Search Help, checked 14 Oct 2026). A request there is also a notification only.
| Route | Who it reaches | What success means |
|---|---|---|
| Search Console URL Inspection and sitemaps (source) | Google Search | A crawl was requested. No promise of indexing or of a link in AI Overviews. |
| Google Indexing API (source) | Google, for job and livestream pages only | Google may recrawl soon. |
| IndexNow (source) | Bing, Yandex, Seznam, Naver, Yep, Internet Archive, Amazonbot | The notification was accepted and shared. Each engine still decides. |
| Brave Submit URL (source) | Brave Search | A re-fetch was requested. |
| ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity | No public submission route documented | Allow the right crawler and keep the page readable. |
What does Bing Webmaster Tools AI Performance show?
It is the closest thing to an owner-side AI citation report from a search engine. Microsoft announced it as a public preview on 10 February 2026. It counts how often your pages are cited as sources in Microsoft Copilot, AI summaries in Bing and selected partners, per page, with a sample of grounding queries, the phrases the AI searched with (Bing Webmaster Blog, checked 14 Oct 2026).
On 16 June 2026 Microsoft added intent and topic groupings, a citation share for each grounding query, and a compare view. Microsoft says citation share is not traffic share, does not show competitor domains and is not a ranking (Bing Blog, checked 14 Oct 2026).
Read it as evidence about Microsoft surfaces only. It does not show what ChatGPT, Gemini or Perplexity said.
Which crawler controls matter for each AI engine?
Most engines split their bots by job: search, model training, and pages a person asks about. Blocking a training bot does not remove you from search. Blocking a search bot can.
- Look past robots.txt: a page can load for a person yet show a bot challenge to a crawler. Check the HTTP status, robots meta tag, X-Robots-Tag header, canonical and the HTML the bot gets.
- Verify real visits: a user agent string can be faked. Google says so, and Google and Perplexity publish ways to verify their crawlers (Google crawlers, Perplexity Docs, checked 14 Oct 2026).
- Change narrowly: do not switch off security site-wide. Allow the named search bots on public pages, then test again.
| Engine | Search or answer access | Training or other | What the vendor says |
|---|---|---|---|
| Googlebot | Google-Extended (a robots.txt token, not a separate bot) | Google-Extended covers some Gemini training and grounding, not Google Search ranking (Google crawlers). | |
| OpenAI (ChatGPT) | OAI-SearchBot; ChatGPT-User for pages a person asks about | GPTBot | Blocking OAI-SearchBot keeps you out of ChatGPT search answers. Blocking GPTBot does not (OpenAI). |
| Anthropic (Claude) | Claude-SearchBot; Claude-User for pages a person asks about | ClaudeBot | Blocking Claude-SearchBot or Claude-User may reduce search visibility. ClaudeBot is for training (Claude Help Center). |
| Perplexity | PerplexityBot; Perplexity-User for pages a person asks about | None listed for training | PerplexityBot is not used for training. Perplexity-User generally ignores robots.txt, since a person asked for the page (Perplexity Docs). |
Does llms.txt help you get into AI answers?
Not on its own. llms.txt is a proposed plain-text file at the root of a site that points AI tools to its most useful pages. Google says you do not need AI text files or special markup to appear in its AI features (Google Search Central, checked 14 Oct 2026).
A missing llms.txt does not mean your site cannot be crawled. Fix crawler access and readable pages first. See what llms.txt is and whether llms.txt works.
What did Depra AI do for its own site?
We treat indexing requests as housekeeping. On 13 October 2026 we resubmitted the sitemap in Search Console, requested indexing for changed pages and pushed 140 URLs to Bing through IndexNow, as listed in the Depra AI case study. Bing Webmaster Tools showed 344 citations in Copilot in the quarter shown and 56 depra.ai pages indexed, read on 13 October 2026.
ChatGPT already ranked Depra AI on top in the owner's checks of 6 October 2026, a week before those requests, as the case study records. Depra AI got into ChatGPT's answers for AI-visibility questions in India after publishing answer-first pages, dated facts and original research, built without paid backlinks or paid marketing. Gemini, Perplexity and Google AI Overviews still rarely name Depra AI.
Depra AI does not send indexing requests for you. The Depra AI crawler checker reads robots.txt for your site and your competitors' sites, gives a verdict with the exact rule for each of 41 AI crawlers, tests a single URL, and can show which AI bots visit your pages from your server or CDN logs.
A short checklist
Work through these in order. Each step has its own test.
- 1. Confirm the page: one canonical URL, no redirect chain, public, and about the product the buyer asked for.
- 2. Check crawler access: allow Googlebot, OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot and PerplexityBot on public pages. Decide GPTBot, ClaudeBot and Google-Extended as a separate training choice. The AI crawlers list explains each bot.
- 3. Check index controls: no stray noindex or nosnippet on pages you want quoted, and a sitemap that lists them.
- 4. Notify: submit the sitemap in Search Console, request a recrawl for key changed pages once, and send IndexNow on each deploy.
- 5. Confirm indexing: use URL Inspection for Google and Bing Webmaster Tools for Bing. Do not rely on site: searches.
- 6. Measure answers, not requests: check whether each engine names you for real buying questions, and which sites it cites instead. See how to measure AI visibility.