What this check inspects
When you supply your IndexNow key, Shipwork fetches /<key>.txt and checks that it returns exactly the key. If it does, it posts the URL to the public IndexNow endpoint with the host, key and key location, and reports the response status: accepted, rejected for a bad key, rejected for a bad URL or host, or rate limited.
What a failure means
A missing or mismatched key file is an error. The endpoint returns 403 for a key it cannot verify and 422 for a URL or host it will not accept, both errors. A 429 is a warning that you are submitting too often. Without a key, the check reports the setup step it needs rather than guessing.
How to fix it
- Place the key file at the site root: https://yourdomain.com/<key>.txt, not in a subfolder and not served as HTML.
- The file must contain the key and nothing else, with no extra whitespace or markup.
- Submit only URLs whose content changed. Bulk submission of unchanged URLs earns rate limiting.
- Use the same key that is in the file, exactly, including case.
A typical failure, worked through
The setupA developer places the key file at /indexnow/<key>.txt because that folder name made sense, and configures submissions to point there.
What the check reportsThis check looks for the root key file, so it reports that file missing. A manual submission can use a custom keyLocation, but a file under /indexnow/ cannot verify URLs outside that directory.
The pointUse a root key file for site-wide coverage. If you deliberately use a custom keyLocation, keep submitted URLs within its directory scope and confirm the file contents match the submitted key.