IndexNow for GoCommerce

What it does

Configuration

One setting is required, the storefront URL, and it lives on the Plugins screen only; Config holds nothing but test and proxy overrides. The plugin starts switched off — enable it there.

The module reads its Config struct, not the environment. The variable names are the ones the package’s own example or the reference binary uses; in your own main() you choose where each value comes from. Where a setting has a panel label, the admin’s settings drawer can hold it too, and a value typed there wins over Config.

Setting it up

1. Install the modulePass indexnow.New() to gocommerce.New in your own main(), as below. The reference binary has no flag for it; examples/store/main.go installs it.
2. Switch it onEnable IndexNow on the Plugins screen and set the storefront URL — and the product and collection paths, if yours differ.
3. Serve the keyPOST /api/admin/x/indexnow/key mints a key and says what to serve: <key>.txt at the storefront’s root, holding the key with no trailing newline — or a route proxying /x/indexnow/key.
4. Check itGET /api/admin/x/indexnow/check fetches the file from the storefront, compares it byte for byte, and names the problem — a 404, a wrong key, a stray newline — before anything is submitted.

import (
	"github.com/itswadesh/gocommerce/core"
	"github.com/itswadesh/gocommerce/ext/indexnow"
)

// Nothing to configure here: the storefront URL is a plugin
// setting, and the storefront serves the key file.
app, err := gocommerce.New(cfg, indexnow.New())

How it works

• Batched on purpose

  An operator repricing a range edits thirty products in two minutes. URLs collect for 30 seconds and go as one submission, and a product saved four times is submitted once.

• One endpoint for all

  Submissions go to api.indexnow.org, which forwards to every participating engine, rather than to each engine separately — the practice the shared endpoint exists to stop.

• Only this host’s URLs

  IndexNow refuses a batch that mixes hosts, so a URL not on the storefront’s host is dropped before sending rather than losing the rest. At most 10,000 URLs go in one request.

• A byte-for-byte check

  The check compares the storefront’s file with the key exactly, because a trailing newline looks right in a browser and is refused by IndexNow — the commonest way, the package says, this setup goes wrong.

• Submit, exported

  The module’s Submit method is exported, so a host can send pages the module does not know about — a CMS page, a hand-built landing page — without reimplementing the protocol.

• No tables

  The key lives in the plugin’s settings and nothing about submissions is stored. What was submitted and when is, in the package’s words, a question the search engine answers.

What it does not do

Read these before an order depends on it. No store is known to run GoCommerce in production yet, so these come from the code, not from anyone’s experience.

• No GoogleGoogle does not take part in IndexNow. A store that wants Google to know sooner still needs Search Console and a sitemap.
• Products and collections onlyContent pages, the home page and category pages are not submitted, unless your own code calls Submit for them.
• Fire and forgetA failed submission is logged and dropped, not retried. URLs waiting in the 30-second window are held in memory, so a restart inside it loses them.
• The key file is yours to serveThe engine cannot put the key on the storefront’s host. Until the storefront answers with it, IndexNow refuses the submissions.
• Off until switched onInstalling the module does not enable it, and with no storefront URL set it submits nothing.
• The panel’s hint is wrongThe Storefront URL field’s help says the key file is served from the engine. It is not: as the package doc explains, the storefront serves it.