Fixed IndexNow pinging /404/ for posts with no web URL

[ErisDS]

What

IndexNow (behind the indexnow labs flag) pings api.indexnow.org when a post is published or edited, resolving the post URL via urlService.facade.getUrlForResource(...).

That returns a /404/ URL when a published post is not owned by any route — e.g. an imported or members post that falls outside the site's collections, or a routing config with no catch-all. In that case the ping submitted https://<site>/404/ instead of a post URL. This was seen in production on a site whose unrouted posts produced most of its IndexNow pings.

Change

After resolving the URL, if it's empty or ends in /404/, skip the ping and log an indexnow.unresolved_url event instead. Other behaviour is unchanged.

Notes

• A published post with no web URL is usually a site routing/content issue; the indexnow.unresolved_url event makes it observable.
• getUrlForResource returns /404/ as its not-found sentinel (see url-service.js), so matching it identifies an unrouted resource.

Testing

Added a unit test asserting no ping and an indexnow.unresolved_url event (with post_id/post_slug/url) when the URL resolves to /404/; existing ping tests stub a resolved URL. 22 unit tests pass; lint clean.

[coderabbitai]

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📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 44652f9 and e3368ae.

📒 Files selected for processing (2)

• ghost/core/core/server/services/indexnow.js
• ghost/core/test/unit/server/services/indexnow.test.js

🚧 Files skipped from review as they are similar to previous changes (1)

• ghost/core/test/unit/server/services/indexnow.test.js

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Walkthrough

This PR adds an early validation guard to the ping() function in the IndexNow service that prevents sending pings to search engines when a post URL cannot be properly resolved. When a resolved URL is missing or ends with /404/, the function now logs a structured warning event (indexnow.unresolved_url) containing the post ID/slug and the invalid URL, then exits before attempting the IndexNow API request. Test setup was updated to stub the URL resolver to return a valid URL by default, and a new test case verifies the early exit behavior for the /404/ scenario.

Possibly related PRs

• TryGhost/Ghost#28295: Introduces structured system.event logging scheme used by this PR's indexnow.unresolved_url warning events.

🚥 Pre-merge checks | ✅ 5

✅ Passed checks (5 passed)

Check name	Status	Explanation
Title check	✅ Passed	The title accurately describes the main change: preventing IndexNow from pinging /404/ URLs for posts with no routable web URL.
Description check	✅ Passed	The description clearly explains the problem, the change made, and testing approach, all directly related to the changeset.
Docstring Coverage	✅ Passed	Docstring coverage is 100.00% which is sufficient. The required threshold is 80.00%.
Linked Issues check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.
Out of Scope Changes check	✅ Passed	Check skipped because no linked issues were found for this pull request.

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✨ Finishing Touches

📝 Generate docstrings

• Create stacked PR
• Commit on current branch

🧪 Generate unit tests (beta)

• Create PR with unit tests
• Commit unit tests in branch indexnow-skip-unresolved-url

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[coderabbitai]

Actionable comments posted: 1

🤖 Prompt for all review comments with AI agents

Verify each finding against current code. Fix only still-valid issues, skip the
rest with a brief reason, keep changes minimal, and validate.

Inline comments:
In `@ghost/core/test/unit/server/services/indexnow.test.js`:
- Around line 289-290: The test currently only asserts loggingStub was called
once and that loggingStub.args[0][0].system.event === 'indexnow.unresolved_url';
expand the assertion to validate the full structured warning payload by
asserting the presence and expected values/types of
loggingStub.args[0][0].system.event, loggingStub.args[0][0].context.post_id,
loggingStub.args[0][0].context.post_slug, and loggingStub.args[0][0].context.url
(use the same expected post id/slug/url values used to trigger the warning in
the test); update the assertions around loggingStub in indexnow.test.js to check
these fields in addition to the event to prevent regressions in the log
contract.

🪄 Autofix (Beta)

Fix all unresolved CodeRabbit comments on this PR:

• Push a commit to this branch (recommended)
• Create a new PR with the fixes

---

ℹ️ Review info

⚙️ Run configuration

Configuration used: Path: .coderabbit.yaml

Review profile: CHILL

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Run ID: c6eb6f68-bd6f-4573-888f-96671336eb15

📥 Commits

Reviewing files that changed from the base of the PR and between 79a3b46 and 44652f9.

📒 Files selected for processing (2)

• ghost/core/core/server/services/indexnow.js
• ghost/core/test/unit/server/services/indexnow.test.js

[ErisDS]

Addressed CodeRabbit's suggestion: the /404/ skip test now asserts the full structured payload (system.event, system.post_id, system.post_slug, system.url), not just the event name.