Google Says Indexing API May Work For Unsupported Content But…

Gary Illyes from Google said in the recent Google SEO office hours the Google Indexing API may work for unsupported content formats, but that you shouldn’t be “surprised if suddenly it stopped working for unsupported verticals overnight.”

He said this at the 10:15 mark into the video:

Question: I would like to know if I can use Indexing API for a real estate website (as a real estate ad).

Answer: I strongly recommend checking the docs for Indexing API. As far as I remember, it’s limited to just job postings and broadcast events, and not for anything else. It might still work, but since it’s intended for those two things, I wouldn’t be surprised if suddenly it stopped working for unsupported verticals overnight.

Here is the video embed:

As a reminder, the Google Indexing API should just be used for job postings and live stream content – nothing else. John Mueller of Google recently said most sites that use the Indexing API wrongfully are spammy and or low quality.

Google has said if you use it for other purposes it won’t work. Many who have tried it over the years said it works to get your content indexed fast but then it drops out of the index quickly after. So it seems like Gary’s statement is more accurate.

Forum discussion at X.