Index coverage is the indexing status of the URLs of a site in Google Search Console. It shows which URLs Google has indexed and, for the others, why not. Google’s Help page calls the report Page indexing; its training video still carries the name “Index coverage status”.
How is the report built?
URLs are grouped as indexed or not indexed. For not indexed URLs, Google gives a reason, such as “URL blocked by robots.txt”, “URL marked ‘noindex’”, “Server error (5xx)”, “Not found (404)” or “Soft 404”. A chart shows the counts over time, and each reason lists example URLs, up to 1,000 in the table.
Not indexed is not always a problem. Google lists a robots.txt rule, a noindex tag, a duplicate URL and a removed page with a 404 as legitimate reasons. The goal is that all important URLs are indexed, not all URLs.
After a fix, you can start a validation in the report. Google says validation typically takes up to about two weeks and can take much longer.
Google also notes that sites with fewer than 500 pages probably do not need the report. It suggests site: searches for those cases.
| Status in Search Console | What happened | Cause per Help Center | What the Help Center recommends |
|---|---|---|---|
| Crawled - currently not indexed | Google crawled the page but did not index it. It may or may not be indexed in the future. | not stated in the Help Center | No need to resubmit the URL for crawling |
| Discovered - currently not indexed | Google found the page but has not crawled it yet. The last crawl date is empty. | typically: crawling was expected to overload the site, so Google rescheduled it | no action stated |
| Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user | The URL is marked as canonical, but Google indexed a different page as canonical | Google thinks another URL makes a better canonical | Inspect the URL and compare the Google-selected canonical with the user-declared canonical |
| Duplicate without user-selected canonical | The page is a duplicate. Google serves the other page it chose as canonical. | The page does not indicate a preferred canonical | Not an error per Google; if the choice is wrong, mark the canonical explicitly or make the content differ substantially |
| URL blocked by robots.txt | The site's robots.txt file blocked the page | a rule in robots.txt | To make sure the page is not indexed, remove the robots.txt block and use 'noindex' |
| Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt | The page is indexed although robots.txt blocks it. Google does not crawl it. | Other pages link to it; Google indexes it using information from the linking page | To exclude it, remove the block and use 'noindex'. To allow it, update robots.txt. |
| URL marked ‘noindex’ | Google found a 'noindex' directive when trying to index the page and did not index it | 'noindex' in the page source or response headers | If intended, nothing to do. Otherwise remove 'noindex' and check with the live test. |
| Soft 404 | The page shows a 'not found' message but returns no 404 status code | Google thinks the response is a soft 404 | Return 404 for real 'not found' pages; otherwise add more information and view the rendered page in URL Inspection |
Labels and explanations follow the German and English Search Console Help pages on the Page indexing report. The two language versions punctuate the labels differently (German uses an en dash, English a hyphen). The URL Inspection tool shows the status of a single URL. Sources: Search-Console-Hilfe: Bericht zur Seitenindexierung; Search Console Help: Page indexing report. Last checked: .
Example
Illustrative numbers: a site submits 20,000 URLs in a sitemap. The report shows 14,000 indexed and 6,000 not indexed, 4,500 of them as “URL marked ‘noindex’”. If those pages are meant to stay out, only the remaining 1,500 need a closer look.
Sources
- Page indexing report – Search Console Helpsupport.google.com
- Crawl Stats report – Search Console Helpsupport.google.com
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