Page indexing report in Search Console, explained

The short answer

The Page indexing report in Search Console lists which pages Google has indexed and which it has not, with a reason for each group. Not indexed is not always a fault, because redirects, duplicates and deliberate noindex pages belong there. Check your important pages first, and treat Crawled or Discovered, currently not indexed as questions about quality, duplication or server capacity.

What the Page indexing report lists

The Page indexing report lists the addresses Google knows about on your site and sorts them into two groups: indexed and not indexed. Each not indexed group carries a reason, such as a redirect, a noindex rule or a duplicate. Click a reason to see example addresses and a Learn more link that explains the status.

Indexed means Google has stored the page and can show it in results. It does not mean the page ranks well. Not indexed means Google is not showing that address at present. Google's own help text says this is not necessarily bad, because most sites contain addresses that should stay out of search.

The report is least useful for a site of a few pages and most useful for a site with many address variants: filters, tags, old redirects, printable versions and test copies. Treat it as an inventory of everything Google has seen, and expect most of the not indexed list to be housekeeping.

The Source column and how to sort the list

Many reasons carry a Source value of Website or Google. Website means the cause is probably something on your site that you can change. Google means the decision was Google's, such as its choice of which duplicate to keep. Start with Website items. Google's help page advises giving priority to issues whose validation state is failed or not started and whose source is Website.

Do not sort by the size of a group. A group of five pages that includes your main service page matters more than a group of five hundred old tag addresses. Open each group, read the example addresses, and ask one question: would I be unhappy if this address never appeared in Google?

Reasons you can usually leave alone and reasons to check

The table follows Google's own descriptions of the common reasons. The last column is a starting point, since the right response depends on what you intended.

Two of these reasons come down to choosing the right redirect or the right address. The guide to 301 and 302 redirects covers the first. Many duplicate reasons trace back to addresses that differ only by parameters, letter case or a trailing slash, and the guide to URL structure for SEO explains how to keep one address per page.

What Crawled, currently not indexed means

“Crawled - currently not indexed” means Google fetched the page and chose not to add it to the index. Google's help page says the page may or may not be indexed in future and that you do not need to resubmit the address for crawling. The status itself gives no reason.

Because Google has already read the page, the likely explanations concern the page rather than the server. Google does not list causes for this status, so treat the following as hypotheses to test.

• The page is very close to another page, on your site or elsewhere, so a second copy adds little.
• The page has little of its own to say, such as a category page with a title and nothing else.
• The page is hard to reach, with few links from other pages on the site.
• The page repeats an answer that other pages already give better.

Test them in order. Search for a distinctive sentence from the page in quotation marks and see whether near copies exist. Read the page as a stranger would and ask what it offers that a competitor's page does not. Add links from pages Google already indexes. If several of your pages overlap, merging them into one stronger page usually works better than polishing all of them. A page built around a narrower, more specific search often has a clearer reason to exist, and the guide to long tail keywords shows how to find those searches.

What Discovered, currently not indexed means

“Discovered - currently not indexed” means Google knows the address exists, for example from a link or a sitemap, but has not fetched it yet. Google's help text says it typically wanted to crawl the page but expected that to overload the site, so it rescheduled. The last crawl date is empty because no crawl took place.

Look at the site before you look at the page. A slow or unreliable server, firewall rules that block Googlebot, and a very large number of low-value addresses can each push pages into this group. Google's help pages note that firewalls and denial-of-service protection can block Googlebot because it often makes more requests than a person would.

A small site with a handful of pages here usually needs time and a healthy server, not a rewrite. A site with thousands of addresses here is telling you that Google does not rate most of them as worth the trip. In both cases the same steps help.

1. Link each page from pages Google already crawls.
2. Keep the sitemap to pages you want indexed.
3. Check that the host is stable and not blocking Googlebot.
4. Remove address variants you do not need.

It also helps to see how the sites that do rank for the subject are built. The SEO competitor analysis guide shows how to compare their page structure and internal links with yours.

When to worry about a page not being indexed

Worry in this order.

1. A page that earns, or should earn, enquiries or sales is not indexed, and the reason is one you did not choose, such as a noindex rule you never added, a robots.txt block or a soft 404.
2. The number of not indexed addresses jumped after a release, a plugin change or a migration.
3. A whole template or section is affected, such as every product page or every article.
4. A new page is still missing after you linked to it, added it to the sitemap and gave Google a fair amount of time.

Do not worry about redirect and alternate groups that match decisions you made, old addresses from retired pages, or admin, cart and internal search addresses you meant to keep out. An unindexed address is not a lost visitor unless someone would have searched for it.

After a fix: validation and re-checking

When you have fixed every address in a group, open the issue and choose Validate fix. Google then rechecks the addresses. If it still finds a single affected address, validation stops, so make sure the whole group is covered. Google says validation can take a while, and sometimes much longer than you expect. You can also fix issues without validating, and the counts update as pages are crawled again.

For one important page, test the live address in URL Inspection and request indexing once. The guide to submitting a sitemap and requesting indexing walks through both steps. For a larger site where indexing problems keep coming back, the search engine optimisation service page from Liftup Technologies sets out the SEO services the team provides.

Related guides

• SEO services
• Url structure for seo
• 301 vs 302 redirects explained
• Competitor analysis for seo step by step
• Submit a Sitemap to Google and Request Indexing
• Google search console for beginners

Questions and answers

What is the Page indexing report?

It is the Search Console report that shows which addresses on your site Google has indexed and which it has not. Each not indexed group has a reason. Some reasons are faults, and many are normal, so read the reason before you act.

What does Crawled, currently not indexed mean?

Google fetched the page and decided not to add it to its index for now. It may or may not be indexed later, and you do not need to resubmit it. Check whether the page is a near copy, has little content, or is poorly linked.

When should I worry about a page not being indexed?

Worry when a page that matters to your business is missing and you did not choose that. Also worry when the count jumps after a site change, or when a whole section is affected. Redirects, deliberate noindex pages and old removed addresses are usually fine.

Does every page on my site need to be indexed?

No. Many addresses exist for visitors or for housekeeping, such as redirects, internal search results and thank-you pages. The goal is that every page you want people to find is indexed, not that every address is.

Why did my not indexed number go up?

Google may have found more addresses, such as filter pages, tags or old redirects. A migration, a plugin update or a new template can also create variants or add a noindex rule. Open the biggest new group and read the example addresses.

Should I request indexing for every page that is not indexed?

No. For Crawled, currently not indexed, Google says resubmitting is not needed. Fix the likely cause first, then request indexing once for pages that really matter.