How I got a solo project indexed on Google, Bing, and Yandex, and set up real-time notifications with IndexNow
I've been building DukoTools solo for the past 4 months, a free,
ad-free platform with 106+ tools. Here's what I learned on the SEO/
indexing side, since most advice online only talks about Google.
The three-engine reality
Everyone optimizes for Google. Almost nobody talks about Bing or
Yandex, even though both send real traffic, especially Yandex if you
have any international audience.
I verified and submitted sitemaps to all three:
- Google Search Console
- Bing Webmaster Tools
- Yandex Webmaster
All three ended up indexing the site, but the process and quirks were
different for each.
One thing that tripped me up: Yandex has a region targeting setting
that, if set incorrectly, can hurt how your content is treated. I had
mine misconfigured and had to fix it to "No geographic targeting" since
my tools aren't region-specific.
IndexNow: the underrated one
This was the most useful thing I set up. IndexNow is a protocol
that lets you instantly notify Bing and Yandex the moment you publish
new content, instead of waiting for them to crawl and discover it on
their own schedule.
I automated this so every new tool I ship pings IndexNow automatically.
The practical effect:
- New pages get picked up by Bing/Yandex within hours instead of days or weeks
- No manual submission needed per page
Google doesn't support IndexNow (they have their own Indexing API with
much stricter use cases), so this specifically helps the other two.
Small technical bugs that quietly hurt SEO
Two things I fixed that had nothing to do with content, but affected
how the site was perceived:
- A favicon bug where the wrong icon was showing in search results and browser tabs
- The Yandex region setting mentioned above
Neither of these show up in typical "SEO checklist" content, but both
were quietly working against me until fixed.
What I'm doing now
I've started adding GA4 event tracking to individual tools (starting
with one) so I can see actual usage instead of just pageviews, since
indexing is only useful if it leads to real engagement.
Happy to go deeper on any part of this, the multi-engine submission
process, IndexNow setup, or the GA4 tracking, if anyone's curious.
This is really useful, especially the point about not relying entirely on Google. The IndexNow automation is something I hadn't considered seriously before.
I'm currently working on SEO and analytics for a SaaS product, and we're moving from simply looking at page visits toward tracking actual user behavior and activation.
The GA4 event tracking part is particularly interesting. What events are you currently tracking beyond pageviews, and how are you deciding which events are actually meaningful for measuring whether a tool is providing value?
Also, did you notice a measurable difference in indexing speed after implementing IndexNow compared with manually submitting URLs?
IndexNow is one of those things I kept meaning to set up but never got around to — good to know it's relatively straightforward for solo projects. Did you run into any issues with the Yandex verification process? I've heard it can be a bit finicky compared to the others.
Solid write-up. The Bing angle is more important than most indie hackers realize right now because Bing powers Copilot, and Copilot is showing up as the default assistant in Windows and Edge for a lot of enterprise users. Getting indexed well on Bing is not just about Bing traffic anymore.
The IndexNow point is underused. I have seen founders obsess over Google Search Console submission and never touch IndexNow, which is essentially free speed on two engines.
One thing worth adding to your checklist: structured data markup. Google, Bing, and Yandex all parse schema.org markup, but each engine weights certain types differently. For a tools platform like yours, HowTo and SoftwareApplication schema can get you rich results faster than content alone.
The GA4 event tracking per tool is the right next move. Pageviews on a tools site are almost meaningless. The metric that matters is whether people complete the tool action and return within 7 days. Return rate on individual tools will tell you which ones have real stickiness vs. which are one-and-done curiosity clicks.
How many of your 106 tools are seeing meaningful repeat usage so far?
The multi-engine approach is a good reminder that “indexed” is a distribution event, not a product outcome. I’d keep the GA4 work focused on a small funnel per tool: search landing, first meaningful interaction, and a return or share signal. That makes it easier to compare Google, Bing, and Yandex traffic without treating every visit as equal. For IndexNow, I’d also log submission time, first bot crawl, first indexed appearance, and first useful session; the lag between those timestamps will tell you whether the automation is actually improving discovery. The favicon and region fixes are exactly the kind of low-visibility issues that deserve a regression checklist. Are you seeing a meaningful difference in qualified tool usage by search engine, or mainly in crawl speed so far?
The interesting part is that indexing itself isn't the real success metric. Once you’re tracking usage at the individual-tool level, you can start seeing which indexed pages actually attract meaningful users rather than just getting crawled.