How to Fix ‘Crawled – Currently Not Indexed’ & ‘Discovered – Not Indexed’ Issues!

1. Low-Quality Content

Google also tends to skim through web pages that have low-quality or in other words, thin pages. This could mean that pages with minimum textual contents, limited hierarchical depth of information, or contents which do not meet the user’s purpose and need.

2. Duplicate Content

Google wants to avoid showing similar or practically the same content in the search results. If your page’s content is duplicate to other pages in your website or there are similar pages on the internet, your page will not be indexed.

3. Crawl Budget Limitations

Google allocates every site some crawl budget, the number of pages to crawl in a given time. Important pages will be crawled and indexed no matter how large your web site is, but some of the less important pages may be crawled but not indexed.

4. New Pages

On occasions, the new published pages may remain for sometime before getting into the list of indexed pages. It is possible that Google will index them fast but keep on stalling the indexing process.

5. Technical Issues

Googlebot doesn’t index a Web url after indexing if due to technical imperfections in a website, page takes time to load or server response is low or there are rendering issues. It is also important that during the visit to Googlebot, the page may not be properly loaded and therefore the page may not be indexed. It also affects pages with JavaScript rendering problems, or where their contents rely heavily on ‘client-side’ processing. To help Google index your site properly, you need to have a fast stablished server and clean source code.

6. Noindex Tag or Meta Directives

If you have a noindex meta tag or HTTP header on such a page, you tell Googlebot not to index your page directly. It is sometimes inserted purposefully during development or applied to the wrong pages . Be sure again of the use of noindex instructions on the pages that are to be intentionally omitted, for example internal search results or certain administrative pages.

7. Poor Mobile Optimization

Google has recently introduced mobile-first indexing, and that is why your site’s mobile version is a priority for indexing and ranking. If the page is not friendly to mobile devices, maybe slow to load or having poor user experience on a mobile or is nonresponsive, then it may be crawled but not indexed. Responsive web design is critical for your internet pages to be considered when a search query is conducted.

8.Insufficient Internal Linking

Google utilises internal links to navigate through your website and understand the importance of different pages. If a page is not well connected on your internal network, it may not be considered very valuable and thus may just not be indexed. This problem is common with pages that are located in the structure of your site or those that few internal links connect them to.

9. Blocked by Robots.txt

At times, the robots.txt file may prevent some pages from being indexed by search engines by containing wrong rules or patterns. Although it can and does crawl a page specified by robots.txt, Google may not index such a page as it complies with the guidelines that prohibit crawling. This omission can be avoided by often conducting a check up on your robots.txt file.

10. Orphan Pages

An orphan page, also known as a lonely page, is a Web page that doesn’t receive any links from other pages within the website. Unlinked, or orphan, pages remain hidden both from the user and Googlebot. However, if Google finds them through other methods, for instance, a sitemap, but they are not well incorporated into your site map as internal links, then they are likely to remain unindexed as irrelevant.

11.Over-Optimization

Over-optimization includes uses of keyword stemming, over-reliance on SEO techniques or producing illiterate content. Google’s algorithm is able to notice such problems and may choose not to consider the change at all if Google feels that the page is over-optimization for better search rankings. To avoid this problem, it is crucial to keep your SEO techniques organic and center them on the user.

12.Thin Affiliate Pages

If your website contains pages designed solely for affiliate links with little original content, Google may decide not to index them. Pages that are purely designed to generate commissions without offering much value to users are often filtered out by the search engine.

13. Spammy or Irrelevant Content

Google works to ensure that search results offer valuable, trustworthy, and relevant information to users. Pages that are overly spammy, filled with irrelevant content, or loaded with advertisements may be crawled but not indexed. Pages should focus on delivering high-quality, user-centered content that meets search intent.

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A. Improve Content Quality

One of the key success factors to determine whether Google will index a page or not is the content quality. Google has a preference in the indexing of pages that are useful to users through unique, informative and proper formatting. Here's how to improve your content quality:

1. Avoid thin content: Thin content means web pages that contain very little information or even very little worth. It is advisable to have between 500 and 1000 words of fresh and pertinent information on the website’s each page. It is better to concentrate on producing quality articles full of valuable and reliable information that will help a reader understand all the aspects of the matter.
2. Optimize for SEO: By implementing related keywords in an organic manner ensure that you include the keywords in the H1 and H2 tags. But don’t overdo it since this can negatively affect your rankings or lead to a Google penalty. However, it is also necessary to add images, videos or infographics to make more attractive and valuable inputs to the users.
3. Eliminate duplicate content: If your site has a set of pages that are somewhat similar to each other and you want Google to index only one version of this page, use the ‘canonical’ tags. Duplicate content only misleads search robots and leads to exclusion of the pages in question from the index.

B. Improve Internal Linking

This is primarily very important since internal linking can help Google crawl and index your pages effectively. Web pages that are interconnected in your website are likely to be indexed because Google considers them more relevant. Here’s how to strengthen your internal linking:

1. Link from high-authority pages: There are pages that you should already know receive good traffic or rank well on your website. Use these authoritative pages to link-in your other pages which lack index from the search engine. This increases the visibility of the non-indexed pages to Google
2. Organize content hierarchically: Ensure your website has a logical structure where essential pages are easily accessible from the homepage and well-linked across your site. Use breadcrumb navigation and silo structures to connect related pages, so Google can easily crawl and prioritize them.

C. Submit pages for Indexing Manually

Crawling is not necessarily followed by indexing in Google, but the latter can be initiated through Search Console, entering the desired web page address in the search bar. Here’s how:

1. Use the URL Inspection tool: URL Inspection tool is used in Google Search section of the Google Search Console, whereby the URL of the non-indexed page should be entered. The first tool will indicate if the page was crawled and then allow you to request indexing if the page is not included in Google yet.
2. Submit updated sitemaps: Make sure that your sitemap is the most recent one and index it in Google Search Console. Google benefits from sitemaps in identifying pages on your site that may have not been indexed yet and can help them get ‘noticed’.

D. Check for Crawl Errors

When people are searching for your website, a number of technical factors like broken links or server response issues may wipe out the web-pages from Google index in spite of the fact that it is crawled. Fixing these errors is crucial, lets see how:

1. Fix broken links: Google Search Console or Screaming Frog used to check for link that lead to error 404 on your website. Check all links which refer to the page and all the links on the page which refer to other pages which are active.
2. Audit server response codes: Find out the number of views on your pages and check the relevance and quality of the HTTP status codes corresponding to the clients’ occurrences. Any page resulting in any status code other than 200 (OK status) including 404 errors and 500 server errors will not be indexed. Regarding the matter, if pages have some server problems, solve them with your host or developer.

E. Update or Remove Noindex Tags

There might be some pages that you wish to have indexed but that have noindex tags which means it might be crawled by Google but will not be indexed. Here’s how to fix this:

1. Review noindex directives: Look at the meta tags or HTTP headers for the pages that are crawled but not indexed; chances are there’ll be a noindex directive. If the noindex tag is not supposed to be there, remove it to allow Google to index the page.
2. Intentional noindex tags: If certain pages are intentionally marked with noindex (e.g., admin pages, duplicate content pages), make sure they’re correctly labeled. But be mindful not to accidentally apply noindex to important pages like product pages or blog posts that should be indexed.

Each of these methods addresses specific issues that could be preventing Google from indexing your content, ensuring that your hard work in creating quality pages pays off in improved search engine rankings and traffic.

A. Successfully Indexed Pages

The part of the report, which is given below, embodies all the pages that Google has visited and then chosen to index. These pages are able to rank in Google search and can therefore be seen by a user that is searching for a keyword. On this category pages, content, structure and technical optimisation are usually well done.

What to check: Make sure the high impact pages are here, such as the home page, check point pages, product specific pages, and blog posts. The absence of a distinct set of key pages requires further investigations in order to determine why it did not index the page.

B. Excluded Pages

The excluded section shows the pages that Google has crawled but excluded from its index for various reasons. These reasons can range from intentional exclusions, such as noindex  tags or duplicate content, to unintentional exclusions caused by technical errors. Common causes for pages being excluded include:

• If you have to intentionally use a noindex tag (for example, on the thank-you page, an admin section, or internal search), they will be displayed here.
• The criterion is relatively simple: if one of the pages is marked as a duplicate, Google may decide to scan and index only the primary copy.
• This often includes web pages with broken links , problems on the server or are only reaching through a redirect from another page that Google was unable to index.

What to check: Check this part frequently to make sure certain pages are omitted on purpose. Lack of crawl budget can be devastating to your site, especially if vital pages are not getting crawled because of technical problems or perhaps deliberate noindexation.

C. Crawled and Currently Not Indexed pages

This section is brought by Google to show the pages that Google has visited and continues to visit but has not yet included in its index. This means that Google’s crawlers have been to the page and examined it for relevance only to conclude that it is not relevant enough to join the search index. 

What to check: Use this section to identify pages that have been crawled but not indexed, then review them for potential improvements in content quality, performance, or SEO optimization. This section can signal that further optimization is needed to ensure indexing.

D. Discovered - Currently Not Indexed Pages

This section demonstrates various URLs found by Google but not yet indexed by Google Bot. Google knows these URLs exist (from a sitemap or external link) but hasn’t evaluated the content because:

Even if your website has a lot of pages, Google can avoid crawling these pages for a certain period if its crawl budget was used to crawl other pages within your site.

Google may decide not to visit pages offering content which in its view is low value or importance, few content or bad intranet link.

What to check: Improve the internal linking or submit a new sitemap to Google, or even use the URL Inspection tool to ask for indexing manually.

1. Publish High-Quality, Unique Content

Google majors on the fact that it only indexes those pages that are beneficial, fresh and possess quality information. Such kinds of pages are most likely to be indexed because search engines consider them as beneficial to the users. To achieve this:

• Do not use the content that has been used in the previous assignment. It is important to try to offer some new angles, facts or approaches to the viewed subject.
• Pages should be comprehensive enough to thoroughly answer user queries. Aim for at least 500–1000 words per page.
• Appropriate inserting of keywords into text, but do not overload the site with keywords. Make your headings, subheadings, and meta tags better so that Google locates the content easily.

2. Use Proper Internal Linking

This means internal links assist the Googlebot in crawling through your site making it easier for the crawlers to find the pages.

• Pages that are already ranked in search results can pass authority to non-indexed pages through internal links if these pages are optimized.
• You should locate the internal links within the body content of your webpage in a way that serves to walk users and Google through related content.
• Make sure that your content is not more than three links away from the homepage, so you should ensure even less visited pages are accessible.

3. Make Sure that Sitemap is Current and Inform Google Search Console

• Again, all the known CMS platforms such as WordPress generate sitemaps for you, but double-check that yours is up to date.
• You can find your sitemap in your XML files and submit it to Google Search Console so that Google knows all the directories that are important to you are uploaded.
• The sitemap must be reviewed frequently in order to obviate only the pages you wish to be indexed and there are no mistakes or replicates in the list.

4. Crawl Error: Keep an Eye on Crawl Errors and Fix Them As Soon As Possible

• Make sure the links aren’t dead / pages can’t be found (404 errors) and replace them with links that work or 301 redirects.
• Local pages that return 500 server errors may not be indexed. Consult with your host, or developer to solve these problems.
• Make sure that you are not excluding critical web pages from indexing by accident through your robots.txt file.

5. Optimize for Mobile

• Make sure your site itself is designed for the smaller screen and is compatible with all screen resolutions.
• The mobile sites can be defined by the following characteristics, namely; fast loading, easy site navigation and an excellent user experience. You can use such elements as Google’s **Mobile-Friendly Test** for measuring your website’s mobile usability.
• Don’t use pop-ups or annoying ads on your mobile site as these can harm your ranking.
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6. Ensure Fast Load Times

• Google needs to preferentially index pages that shall load faster, see time equals value. It is possible to notice crawling of slow loading pages but no indexation if the pages are slower than optimal loading time.
• Compress images to reduce their size without compromising quality, ensuring faster load times.
• Remove unnecessary code from CSS and JavaScript files to speed up your site’s performance.
• A CDN helps reduce the load time by delivering your site’s content from the nearest server to the user.