Indexing is the step after crawling. Once Google has fetched a page, it renders it, works out what the page is about, picks a canonical version if there are duplicates, and decides whether it is worth storing. Pages that pass are added to the index, Google’s enormous catalog of pages it can serve in results. Pages that don’t pass are dropped, sometimes permanently and sometimes until Google checks again.
Google does not promise to index every page it crawls. It indexes the pages it judges useful and unique.
Why it matters
Brightside Dental publishes a page for each of its three locations. If the location pages are nearly identical, Google may index one and ignore the other two as duplicates. The result: searches for “dentist near me” in two of the three towns have no Brightside page to show, even though the pages exist on the site.
How to check indexing
Google Search Console has the clearest answers:
- Page indexing report lists indexed and non-indexed pages, grouped by reason.
- URL Inspection shows whether a single URL is on Google, which canonical Google picked, and when it was last crawled. You can also request indexing here after fixing a page.
Two statuses come up often. “Discovered, currently not indexed” means Google knows the URL but hasn’t crawled it yet, often a sign of weak internal linking or a slow server. “Crawled, currently not indexed” means Google fetched it and decided not to store it, which usually points to thin content or near-duplicates.
Common reasons pages are not indexed
- A
noindextag left on from development. - A canonical tag pointing to a different page.
- The page redirects, returns a 404, or returns a server error.
- The content is very short, copied, or too similar to other pages.
- Nothing links to the page, so Google sees little reason to rate it as important.
Common mistakes
Requesting indexing over and over doesn’t help if the page has a quality or duplication problem. Neither does adding the URL to the sitemap again. Fix the reason in the report first, then request indexing once.
Example
A quick way to spot gaps is to compare numbers. If your sitemap lists 240 product and service pages but Search Console shows 150 indexed, the 90-page difference is your to-do list. Open the Page indexing report, sort by reason, and start with the largest group.