- A large share of unindexed pages is normal: filters, pagination, redirects and pages with no value.
- Two statuses deserve action: crawled not indexed, and discovered not indexed.
- The absolute number matters less than the proportion of useful pages that stay out of the index.
Definition
The indexing report splits the URLs known to Google between those in the index and those excluded, with the exclusion reason.
Worked example
A site declares 420 pages in the sitemap. Google indexes 310, excludes 90 as duplicated or redirected, and leaves 20 as crawled not indexed. Those 20 are the real subject: Google saw them and judged them insufficient. The other 90 are normal working order.
Orders of magnitude
A retail site with filters naturally generates thousands of unindexed URLs. What matters is the ratio of indexed pages to sitemap pages, not the total of known URLs.
The most common mistakes
- Wanting everything indexed. Many URLs have no reason to be.
- Confusing crawled not indexed with discovered not indexed. The first is a quality judgment, the second a crawl-budget problem.
- Requesting indexing manually en masse. The tool is meant for isolated cases, not to make up for an underlying problem.
Where to find the metric
In Search Console, the Page indexing report, with the breakdown by reason. URL inspection gives the state of a specific page and the exact reason.
Frequently asked questions
The Adwise team connects Google Ads, Meta Ads, LinkedIn Ads, GA4 and Search Console so agencies and freelancers can run their campaigns from a single place.