How to check if a page is indexed by Google

1. URL Inspection in Search Console (the reliable way)

For any site you've verified in Google Search Console, paste a URL into the search bar at the top. URL Inspection reports one of two things:

• "URL is on Google": the page is indexed and can appear in results.
• "URL is not on Google": with the reason, such as "Excluded by noindex tag", "Blocked by robots.txt" or "Crawled, currently not indexed".

It also shows the canonical URL Google chose, when the page was last crawled, and a live test of the current version. This is the only tool that reads directly from Google's index.

2. The Pages report (for the whole site)

In Search Console, Indexing → Pages splits every known URL into indexed and not indexed, grouped by reason. It's the fastest way to spot a pattern, such as a whole template accidentally set to noindex. The figures are updated every few days rather than live.

3. A site: search (for any site, roughly)

Search Google for site:example.com/page-path. If the page appears, it's indexed. If it doesn't, it might still be indexed: the site: operator is approximate and can leave out pages that are in the index. It's useful for a quick look at a site you don't own, but don't treat a missing result as proof.

Why a page isn't indexed

The causes fall into two groups. The first group you can see and fix directly:

• a noindex meta tag or X-Robots-Tag header;
• a robots.txt rule blocking the URL;
• the URL redirects, so Google indexes the destination instead;
• an error status such as 404, 410 or 5xx;
• a canonical tag pointing to a different URL.

You can check every one of these, for a whole list of URLs at once, without access to Search Console:

The second group is Google's own judgement: "Discovered, currently not indexed" and "Crawled, currently not indexed" mean nothing is blocking the page, but Google hasn't chosen to index it yet. That usually comes down to the page being new, thin, a near-duplicate, or poorly linked from the rest of the site.

How to get a page indexed

1. Remove any blocker: no noindex, crawlable in robots.txt, a 200 status and a self-referencing canonical.
2. Add it to your sitemap and make sure the sitemap is submitted in Search Console.
3. Link to it from relevant, already indexed pages on your site. Internal links are how Google discovers and prioritises pages.
4. Request indexing with URL Inspection's "Request indexing" button. This queues a crawl but doesn't guarantee indexing.
5. Make it worth indexing: pages that answer a real question better than what's already indexed get indexed and stay indexed.

Questions