Google's Indexing API docs no longer say how to raise quota
Summary
Google removed the approval process and the quota request form from its Indexing API documentation, leaving the Google Cloud console as the only place to see or raise a project's limit.
Open the Indexing API quotas page in the Google Cloud console and size the integration against the number there.
Google has rewritten three Indexing API documentation pages, removing the approval process, the quota request form, and a recommendation to use the API instead of sitemaps for short-lived pages, according to side-by-side diffs Search Engine Roundtable published on October 16. Google’s changelog covered only one of the three, saying it had updated the quota page “to reflect the current quota limits and process” and to “remove an outdated form.”
The deleted text is the part that told developers the quota was a starting allowance. The quota page previously said the API “provides initial default quota for testing, and it requires additional approval for usage and resource provisioning,” pointed to a form for requesting more, and warned that quota “may increase or decrease based on the document quality.” The quickstart page stated the default outright, a 200 quota for onboarding and submission testing, and that line is gone too.
The number itself survives on the quota page. Google’s quota and pricing page still gives a default of 200 publish requests per project per day, resetting at midnight Pacific, next to two per-minute ceilings:
| Default quota | Value |
|---|---|
| publish requests per day | 200 |
| getMetadata requests per minute | 180 |
| requests per minute, all endpoints | 380 |
The limit has not changed, only where a developer goes to raise it. Two practitioners said as much within hours, both quoted from X in Barry Schwartz’s write-up for Search Engine Roundtable. Alexander Chukovski, an SEO consultant who tested with a new service account after the change, reported that it still received a 200 default and that the request form now appears only in the Cloud console. Nick LeRoy, an SEO consultant who ran his own testing tool against the API, reported submissions validating while getMetadata came back 404, which he took as a sign the URLs never reached Google’s index queue.
The likelier explanation is that the documentation caught up with a process that already lived in the console, not that Google is opening the API up. The restriction to pages carrying JobPosting markup or BroadcastEvent inside a VideoObject came off some pages but still stands on the main Using the Indexing API page. Schwartz reads that as the restriction staying in place, and nothing in the edits is permission to start pushing product or article URLs, even though ordinary pages have been indexed that way in a Reddit test. Google’s recent moves on fresh content have gone the other way, toward per-partner access like the UGC fresh data program open to approved platforms only.
What to do
- Read the project’s quota on the Indexing API page in the Google Cloud console and treat that as the real limit. The docs no longer describe an onboarding tier, and the request for more now lives only in the console.
- Keep submitting sitemaps for job postings and livestream pages. The advice to prefer the API for short-lived content is no longer documented, and the same removal took out the line telling publishers to keep a sitemap for whole-site coverage.
- Confirm submissions with getMetadata instead of trusting a successful publish response, given LeRoy’s 404s.
- Hold any plan to extend the API past JobPosting and BroadcastEvent markup, because that restriction still appears in the docs.