📋 How Search Atlas Billing Works
Your base subscription covers a fixed monthly allowance of indexing credits based on your plan tier. If you submit more URLs than your plan includes, Search Atlas may apply additional charges on top of your base plan fee to fulfil those requests.
This means your monthly invoice may be higher than your base plan cost if you have submitted URLs beyond your included allowance. You can review all charges, credit usage, and top-up history at any time by clicking your Avatar (top-right) → Billing (Activity Log / Invoices tabs).
- Base plan fee: charged on your renewal date regardless of usage.
- Additional charges: may apply when your submitted URLs exceed your plan's monthly credit limit.
- Credit rollover: check your plan details in your account settings to confirm whether unused credits carry over to the next billing cycle.
🔍 How Indexing Works in Search Atlas
Search Atlas uses two indexing channels to submit your URLs to search engines:
- Google Search Console (GSC) API — Search Atlas connects to your verified GSC property and submits URLs through Google's official indexing pipeline.
- Bing IndexNow — URLs are simultaneously pinged to Bing and other IndexNow-compatible engines for faster discovery.
Both channels must be correctly configured for indexing to work. If either connection is missing or broken, submissions may fail or return errors.
⚙️ Setting Up GSC and Bing IndexNow
Google Search Console setup:
- Navigate to the Integrations section inside your Search Atlas account settings and locate the Google Search Console option.
- Initiate the connection and sign in with the Google account that owns your GSC property.
- Select the correct property, making sure it matches the exact URL prefix or domain of your site.
- Save the connection and confirm that the integration shows an active status before submitting URLs.
Bing IndexNow setup:
- Navigate to the Integrations section inside your Search Atlas account settings and locate the Bing IndexNow option.
- Search Atlas generates a unique API key for your site — copy it as directed on screen.
- Upload the key file to the root of your website as instructed (e.g., yoursite.com/your-key.txt).
- Complete the verification step on screen. Once the integration shows an active status, Bing IndexNow is ready to use.
If either integration shows a warning or disconnected status, re-authenticate or re-upload the key file before submitting URLs.
🚨 Why Your Pages May Not Be Indexing After Several Days
Submitting URLs in Search Atlas does not guarantee immediate or complete indexing — search engines make the final decision. However, if a significant number of your submitted URLs remain unindexed after several days, work through the following checks:
- Verify both integrations are active: Return to the Integrations section and confirm that both GSC and Bing IndexNow show an active (not disconnected or warning) status. A broken connection means submissions are not reaching search engines.
- Check that the correct GSC property is selected: If the property in Search Atlas does not exactly match your site's URL (including http vs https and www vs non-www), submissions will fail silently.
- Confirm the Bing IndexNow key file is accessible: Open a browser and visit yoursite.com/your-key.txt — if the file returns a 404 or is blocked, re-upload it to the root of your site.
- Review your credit balance: If your plan's monthly indexing credit limit has been reached and no top-up has been applied, new URL submissions will not be processed. Check your credit usage under your Avatar (top-right) → Billing (Activity Log / Invoices tabs).
- Check for crawlability issues: Search Atlas can submit URLs, but if those pages are blocked by robots.txt, require login, or have a noindex tag, Google and Bing will not index them regardless of submission. Review your pages directly to rule this out.
- Allow additional time for lower-authority sites: New or low-authority domains may take longer for search engines to crawl and index even after a valid submission. This is normal search engine behavior and not a Search Atlas error.
If you have confirmed all integrations are active, credits are available, and pages are crawlable, but indexing is still not occurring, escalate by opening the chat widget and providing your project name, the specific URLs affected, any error messages shown in the platform, and the date you first submitted those URLs.
If you need further assistance, open the chat widget in the bottom-right corner of the platform and type human teammate to be connected with a member of our team.