Indexed pages are URLs that Google has crawled, processed and added to its index. Only indexed pages can appear in search results, and even those are not guaranteed to appear.
How do you check indexed pages?
The Page indexing report in Search Console shows which URLs are indexed and why others are not. The list of example URLs per status is limited to 1,000 items and is not guaranteed to show all URLs in that status. Single URLs can be checked with the URL Inspection tool, which reports “URL is on Google” or “URL is not on Google” based on the latest indexed version. A live test shows whether a page can currently be crawled and indexed, but it does not guarantee indexing. According to Google, a site: search does not necessarily return all indexed URLs, so it is not a reliable count.
What do the common statuses mean?
- Discovered - currently not indexed: Google knows the URL but has not crawled it yet. Google says this often happens when a crawl was expected to overload the site and was rescheduled.
- Crawled - currently not indexed: Google visited the page but did not add it to the index. Google says there is no need to resubmit the URL.
| 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
A sitemap lists 12,000 URLs, and the report shows 9,400 as indexed. The remaining URLs can be broken down by reason, such as noindex or a canonical pointing elsewhere. (Made-up numbers.)
Common questions
Why are pages not indexed? Typical reasons are a noindex tag, a robots.txt block, a missing internal link or a canonical pointing to a different URL.
Sources
- Page indexing report – Search Console Helpsupport.google.com
- URL Inspection tool – Search Console Helpsupport.google.com
- In-depth guide to how Google Search works – Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com
- site: search operator – Google Search Centraldevelopers.google.com
Last updated: