Are you facing website issues related to indexing? If you ask any SEO expert about Google indexing, you will learn how critical it is for a website owner to have their website pages indexed.
There are several reasons why your pages may not be indexed, which can cause concern for any website owner. Your first step is to understand the leading cause of why your pages are not getting indexed on Google, and then resolve those technical issues to ensure maximum indexability for your website.
However, before delving into the causes of not being indexed and their solutions, we must first understand the entire process step by step, from the discovery of a page to its indexing.
What is Google Indexing?
It is essential to understand how Google indexing works. Google consistently crawls the internet to discover new available information that will be beneficial for users and saves a copy of it in its search library. In simple terms, when you launch a new website, Google reads (crawls) it and stores it in its search library (index).
Indexing = Adding your page to Google’s Library.
It includes checking the content of webpages, as well as the user experience.
How Google Indexing Works?
Google indexing works in a sequential manner. This process is divided into 3 parts:
- Discovery of the page – Google sends bots (Googlebot) to look for your website
- Crawling of the information – These bots read your content, including images, text, links and more to discover any new information available on the website.
- Indexing the information – If Google finds the content worthy, it stores the information in its database (library).
- Ranking – Once your page is indexed, it can appear in the search engine results pages (SERPs) for relevant search queries.
If your pages are not being indexed, then they are most likely stuck at step 2 – crawling.
Why Google Isn’t Indexing Your Content (And How to Fix It)
There can be several reasons why your content is not indexed on Google, but we have listed some common mistakes that people usually neglect.
Reasons | Explaination | Quick Fixes |
| Google Search Console Setup | The primary reason for not getting indexed is not setting up Google Search Console on your website. When your site is new, it’s essential to get noticed by Google, and setting up Google Search Console is crucial for this purpose. It helps Google notify you about your website. | Ensure your website is properly set up in Google Search Console, and submit a manual indexing request for new pages on GSC to expedite indexing. |
| Blocked by Robots.txt | The robots.txt file is crucial for your website. It’s just like the main door of a home that allows someone to enter. Just as you can’t enter someone’s home without permission, a robots.txt file acts similarly. It allows or disallows crawlers to crawl your website’s pages. It’s possible that you have accidentally noindexed the website or a specific page from being indexed in Google. | Analyse the robots.txt file on your website and remove any unwanted user agents. Keep it simple by disallowing only those pages that you don’t want to index, such as admin pages, forgotten password pages, tags, archives, etc. |
| Missing Sitemap.xml | Sitemap.xml is a file that contains all the available URLs of your website. It helps Googlebots to crawl your website easily. Not having a sitemap.xml file or a webpage missing from it may increase the chances of not getting indexed. Having an updated sitemap.xml file is crucial for any website. | Make sure to have an updated sitemap.xml file on your website and decide the priorities of the URLs. Most CMSs (like WordPress) have an automatically generated sitemap file. If your website is built on custom code, then you can create a file from the sitemap.xml generator tool. Bonus tip – Add your sitemap.xml file URL in the robots.txt file. As it is the first file that a search engine crawls, it will help you optimise your crawl budget. |
| 404 Pages or Broken Links | If Google visits a page and that page displays an error (such as a 404 – page not found), Google may skip the page and not index it. | Your website shouldn’t have any 404 error pages; ensure that you remove or redirect those pages to the relevant pages. This will ensure that your crawl budget is not wasted on crawling these 404 pages. |
| Page Loading Speed | If your page takes too long to load, there is a higher chance that Google will not index your page. A slow-loading page can negatively impact user experience, and Google doesn’t want to provide visitors with a poor experience. | Always make sure that your website speed is up to the mark (especially on mobile devices). As no one wants to visit a slow-loading website, Google will also not consider those pages in its search results. Check your website’s speed performance on Google PageSpeed Insights and ensure that your website’s core web vitals are optimised for optimal performance. (On WordPress, you can use speed optimisation plugins like WProcket and Nitropack) |
| Poor Content Quality | If your page content quality is poor, it contains very thin, duplicated, or repeated content (similar to soft 404 pages) that has already been discussed online multiple times, then Google will not consider it valuable and remove it from its index. | Content is king; make sure you don’t publish any thin, duplicate content that compromises your content quality in the eyes of Google. Serve only relevant, high-quality content that makes it worthy to be indexed and ranked at the top of SERPs. |
| Not Mobile Friendly | According to a 2024 report, 95.4% of Google searches are conducted on mobile devices. Google has also started crawling websites using its Googlebot Smartphone. Therefore, it is crucial to have a mobile-friendly website that loads quickly and provides a good user experience for visitors on mobile devices. If your website adheres to outdated practices and is only suitable for desktop, it is possible that Google may not index your content. | Your website should have a friendly design, as most searches are happening from mobile devices. Ensure your theme is optimised for mobile to provide a better user experience. To optimise your website for mobile, you can check Google’s documentation |
| No Backlinks or Internal Links | Pages that don’t link to other pages are called orphaned pages, and they are usually skipped by Googlebots. If other pages aren’t linking to your page, Google might think these pages are not important. | Build a high-quality backlink profile and ensure that you cross-link your website pages with relevant content. Create links on different but relevant sites, and exchange links with websites in the same niche. This will create a strong backlink profile and help you to build authority in your domain. |
| Crawl Budget Limit | Google has a fixed crawl budget for every website, and this amount varies for each website. Google’s crawler spends a set amount of time on a website to crawl the URLs. If you have unnecessary pages (such as tags, archives, and taxonomies), it will exhaust your crawl budget, and your essential pages may be skipped during the crawling process. | Ensure that you disallow all unnecessary pages that don’t need to be indexed (such as taxonomies, tags, archives, etc.). This will help you save your crawl budget for more critical pages, rather than wasting it on less important ones. Ensure that you prioritise crawling for the critical pages, such as the homepage and blog posts. |
Final Thoughts
From what we’ve seen, many people worry when their pages aren’t indexed on Google. However, most of the time, it’s just a minor technical issue that needs to be fixed, such as a blocked page or a slow site speed.
Getting indexed isn’t about doing something extraordinary. It’s about ensuring your website is easy for Google to crawl and index. You have to provide valuable, well-written content. If you focus on writing helpful content, keeping your website up to date, and ensuring it works well on both desktop and mobile devices, Google usually indexes your pages.
Our tip? Start by checking the basics, such as your sitemap, page speed, and internal links between pages. Make small improvements, be patient, and don’t stress if it takes a little while. With the right setup and good content, Google will soon find your pages.
FAQ’s About Google Indexing
Q.1 How To Check If A Page Is Indexed Or Not?
A. You can check a page’s indexing through two methods. First, if you have Google Search Console access, you can paste the page URL in the “Inspect any URL” search bar, and it will indicate whether the page is indexed or not. The second method is to conduct a Google search and apply the “site:” syntax at the start of the page, e.g., site:yourdomain.com/page-url. If it doesn’t show up on SERP, then it is not indexed.
Q.2 How Long Does It Take Google To Index A New Webpage?
A. There is no fixed indexing duration set by Google; it can take anywhere from a few hours to several weeks, depending on your website’s authority and when the Googlebot crawls your website.
Q.3 What’s The Difference Between Website Crawling And Indexing?
A. Crawling is when Google bots discover your page and read the content present on the webpage. Indexing is when Google finds the content worthy and saves a copy of it in its database (Index library).
Q.4 Should I Use The “Request Indexing” Feature In Google Search Console?
A. Yes, you should request manual Indexing in Google Search Console whenever you publish a new page or make changes to an existing page. This will notify Google to review the new or updated page. This is likely to ensure faster indexing for the page.
Q.5 Why Is My Website’s Homepage Indexed But Not My Blog Posts?
A. It happens sometimes when your homepage is indexed, but not your blog posts. Reasons can include poor-quality content, low page speed, broken links, or being blocked by robots.txt, among other issues. You need to determine the reason behind it and resolve it as soon as possible to ensure the indexing.
Q.6 How To Fix Google Indexing Issues?
A. To fix Google indexing issues on your website, first, you need to identify why your website is not being indexed and resolve the issue as soon as possible. Reasons can be anything mentioned above, e.g., low-quality content, blocked by robots.txt, 404 pages, or a non-mobile-friendly design, etc.
Q.7 How Do I Force Google To Index My Site?
A. You can’t force Google to index your webpage. You can only notify it through GSC by doing a manual indexing request using the URL inspection tool. It depends on whether Google decides to consider it or not.
Q.8 What Is The Page Indexing Report In Google Search Console?
A. The Page Indexing report displays a graph and count of your indexed and non-indexed pages on your website. It also shows the reasons why your pages are not indexed. For more details, refer to the page indexing report documentation.
Q.9 What Does ‘Discovered – Currently Not Indexed’ Mean?
A. ‘Discovered – currently not indexed’ is a parameter that shows in the page indexing report in GSC. It means that Googlebot has discovered pages on your website but has not yet crawled them.
Q.10 What Does ‘Crawled, Currently Not Indexed’ Mean?
A. ‘Crawled, currently not indexed’, is another parameter of the page indexing report in GSC. It shows those pages that are discovered and crawled by Googlebots but have not been indexed yet.
Q.11 Where Should I Submit a Sitemap to Google?
A. You can submit a sitemap.xml file in the Google Search Console. After submitting the sitemap, Google will fetch all the available URLs in it. For more detailed information, refer to the Sitemap Documentation by Google Search Central.
