Ask An SEO: Why Are My Pages Discovered But Not Indexed? via @sejournal, @HelenPollitt1

Today’s Ask An SEO question comes from Mandeep, who is having occupation with indexing connected their site.

Mandeep asks:

“We person redesigned a website and we had added a fewer caller pages. Some pages were indexed successfully and immoderate were not.

I tried aggregate times connected Google but that is not working. Now, portion I taxable the URL to index, it is showing this mistake via Google Search Console: Discovered – presently not indexed […]

I person tried everything but thing is working. Please assistance maine resoluteness this issue.”

This informing is coming from the “Pages” conception of the “Indexing” study successful Google Search Console. This study gives users penetration into what pages Google has crawled and indexed and the problems it whitethorn person encountered doing so.

The study volition springiness details of pages that person been successfully crawled and indexed. It besides lists reasons wherefore the pages connected the tract person not been indexed.

Is It A Problem If A Page Isn’t Indexed?

Most sites person pages that are not indexed. These are oftentimes astatine the petition of the website owner.

For example, a leafage mightiness beryllium deliberately excluded from the hunt motor indexes by mode of an HTML “noindex” tag connected the page, oregon possibly it is being blocked from crawling successful the robots.txt file.

URLs that person been purposely excluded from indexing volition look wrong this report, arsenic good arsenic pages with problematic indexing issues.

In general, it tin take immoderate time for a caller leafage connected a website to beryllium crawled and indexed. A caller leafage taking clip to amusement up among the “indexed” pages connected the study is not ever a motion of an issue.

Not each crushed wrong the “Why pages aren’t indexed” study needs to beryllium addressed.

Indexing Issues

Google volition not crawl and scale each URL it finds. Your main interest arsenic a website manager is that the pages that you privation to beryllium disposable arsenic a hunt effect are indexed.

Essentially, if they are not indexed, they volition not beryllium eligible to beryllium a hunt result.

There are respective reasons wrong the “Why pages aren’t indexed” study that do suggest an contented connected the tract that should beryllium investigated. For example, “Server mistake (500)” and “Soft 404.”

These flags whitethorn not needfully beryllium a occupation for the idiosyncratic URLs if they aren’t ones you privation to person indexed, but they tin bespeak a wider contented with the site.

What Is “Discovered – Currently Not Indexed”?

“Discovered – presently not indexed” is an mistake that Google flags for URLs that it knows astir but has not indexed.

What is important to retrieve is that URLs volition not look successful this bucket if they tin acceptable wrong different successful the report.

For example, a leafage with a noindex tag whitethorn technically person been discovered by Google and not indexed, but it would look successful the “Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag” bucket, truthful pages wrong the “Discovered – presently not indexed” bucket are determination for different reason.

The mentation Google gives for a URL appearing arsenic “Discovered – currently not indexed” is:

“The leafage was recovered by Google, but not crawled yet. Typically, Google wanted to crawl the URL but this was expected to overload the site; truthful Google rescheduled the crawl. This is wherefore the past crawl day is bare connected the report.”

Google tries to marque its bots crawl conscientiously.

That is, arsenic Googlebot is not the lone visitant to a site, and possibly 1 among galore bots crawling it, it doesn’t privation to clang the tract by sending excessively galore “requests” to the server.

What Might Be Causing A URL To Be “Discovered – Currently Not Indexed”?

There are 2 main reasons a leafage is known to Google but not indexed. John Muller gave details astir these successful 2023.

Essentially, alongside the concerns astir the server’s capableness to withstand crawling, leafage prime is besides considered.

Now, if a leafage has not been crawled, however tin Google cognize its quality? Well, it can’t. What it tin bash is marque assumptions based connected the prime of the pages elsewhere connected the site.

That’s close – thin, duplicate, low-value pages elsewhere connected your website tin impact the indexation of your halfway pages.

How To Fix The Issue

There is nary speedy hole to determination a leafage from “Discovered – presently not indexed” to “Indexed,” but determination are respective solutions you tin try.

Check If The Page Is Actually Indexed

The archetypal larboard of telephone is to find if the Google Search Console study is close and up to date.

In the apical right-hand country of the report, you volition spot the “Last updated” date. This gives you an thought of whether the study mightiness beryllium outdated.

Next, spell to Google and execute a site:[yourwebsitedomain] inurl:[the URL slug of the leafage you privation to index] search.

If the leafage is returned arsenic a hunt result, past you cognize it is really indexed.

Give the study immoderate clip to get updated, and it volition commencement appearing nether the “Indexed” conception and not successful the “Discovered – presently not indexed” report.

Check Your Site’s Page Quality

Next, you whitethorn privation to see the wide prime of your website, arsenic this could beryllium the crushed wherefore Google is not indexing your page.

Remember, prime is not conscionable a measurement of the words connected your site, their relevance to hunt queries, and the wide “E-E-A-T” displayed. Instead, Google’s John Muller described it as:

“When it comes to the prime of the content, we don’t mean similar conscionable the substance of your articles.

It’s truly the prime of your wide website.

And that includes everything from the layout to the design.

Like, however you person things presented connected your pages, however you integrate images, however you enactment with speed, each of those factors they benignant of travel into play there.”

So, reappraisal your website with these criteria successful mind. How does the prime of your website comparison to that of your competitors?

A thorough website audit is simply a bully spot to start.

Check For Duplicate Pages

Sometimes, a website mightiness person low-quality oregon duplicate pages that the website manager has nary cognition of.

For example, a leafage mightiness beryllium reached via aggregate URLs. You mightiness person a “Contact Us” leafage that exists connected some exampledomain.com/contact-us and exampledomain.com/contact-us/.

The URL with and the URL without the “trailing slash” are considered abstracted pages by Googlebot if it tin scope them both, and the server returns a 200 presumption code. That is, they are some unrecorded pages.

There is simply a anticipation that each of your pages whitethorn beryllium duplicated successful this aforesaid way.

You mightiness besides person a batch of URL parameters connected your website that you are unaware of. These are URLs that incorporate “query strings,” specified arsenic exampledomain.com/dress?colour=red.

They are usually caused by filtering and sorting options connected your website. In an ecommerce website, this mightiness look similar a merchandise class leafage that is filtered down by criteria specified arsenic color, and capable to beryllium sorted by price.

As a result, the main features of the leafage bash not alteration with this filtering and sorting, conscionable the products listed. These are technically separate, crawlable pages and whitethorn beryllium causing a batch of duplicates connected your site.

You whitethorn deliberation your website lone has 100 high-quality pages connected it. However, a Googlebot whitethorn spot hundreds of thousands of near-duplicate pages arsenic a effect of these method issues.

Ways To Fix “Discovered – Currently Not Indexed”

Once you person identified the apt causes of your URL not being indexed, you tin effort to hole it.

If your website has duplicate pages, low-quality, scraped content, oregon different prime issues, that is wherever to begin.

As a broadside benefit, you are apt to spot your rankings amended crossed your pages arsenic you enactment to hole these issues.

Signify The Page’s Importance

In the illustration of our opening question, determination is simply a circumstantial leafage that Mandeep is struggling to get indexed.

In this scenario, I would suggest trying to bolster the page’s value successful the eyes of the hunt engines. Give them a crushed to crawl it.

Add The Page To The Website’s XML Sitemap

One mode of showing Google that it is an important leafage that deserves to beryllium crawled and indexed is by adding it to your website’s XML sitemap.

This is fundamentally a signpost to each of the URLs that you judge hunt bots should crawl.

Remember, Googlebot already knows that the leafage exists; it conscionable doesn’t judge it is beneficial to crawl and scale it.

If it is already successful the XML sitemap, bash not halt there. Consider these adjacent steps.

Add Internal Links To The Page

Another mode to amusement a page’s value is by linking to it from interior pages connected the site.

For example, adding the leafage to your superior navigation system, similar the main menu.

Or adhd contextual links to it from wrong the transcript connected different pages connected your website. These volition signify to Googlebot that it is simply a important leafage connected your website.

Add External Links To The Page

Backlinks – they are a cardinal portion of SEO. We’ve known for a portion that Google volition usage links from different websites to find a page’s relevance and authorization to a subject.

If you conflict to amusement Google that your leafage is of capable prime to index, past having outer links from reputable, applicable websites pointing to it tin springiness further reassurance of the page’s value.

For example, if the leafage you are struggling to get indexed is simply a circumstantial reddish dress’s merchandise item page, past having that dress’s leafage featured successful immoderate manner blogs whitethorn springiness Google the awesome that it is simply a high-quality page.

Submit It To Be Crawled

Once you person made changes to your website, effort resubmitting the leafage to beryllium crawled via Google Search Console.

If you announcement successful the Google Search Console “Indexing” study that the URL is inactive wrong the “Discovered – presently not crawled” bucket aft immoderate clip (it tin instrumentality anyplace from a fewer days to a fewer weeks for Google to crawl a submitted page), past you cognize that you perchance inactive person immoderate issues with the page.

In Summary

Optimize your website for crawling and indexing. If you bash this, you are apt to spot those pages determination from “Discovered – presently not indexed” to “Indexed.”

Optimizing your peculiar website volition necessitate an in-depth investigation of the wide prime of the tract and identifying however to convey the value of the “Discovered – presently not indexed” pages to Googlebot.

More resources: 

• 14 Top Reasons Why Google Isn’t Indexing Your Site
• Google Search Console Complete Guide For SEO
• State Of SEO 2025

Featured Image: Paulo Bobita/Search Engine Journal