Search Console indexing problems, explained
Google's Page indexing report uses short labels such as "Crawled - currently not indexed". Each page in this guide explains one label: what it means, the common causes, and how to fix it.
Pages Google chose not to index
Content, duplication, and linking work usually fixes these.
- Crawled - currently not indexedGoogle crawled the page and decided not to index it, usually because of quality or value signals.
- Discovered - currently not indexedGoogle knows the URL exists but has not crawled it yet.
- Duplicate without user-selected canonicalGoogle sees the page as a duplicate of another page, and the page has no canonical tag.
- Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than userYour page names itself as canonical, but Google chose a different URL as the main version.
- URL is unknown to GoogleGoogle has not found this URL anywhere yet.
- Soft 404The page returns a success status, but Google thinks it looks like an error or empty page.
Technical blocks
A server, robots, or tag setting keeps these pages out.
- Page indexed without contentGoogle indexed the URL but could not read its content.
- Excluded by 'noindex' tagThe page tells Google not to index it with a noindex rule.
- Blocked by robots.txtYour robots.txt file stops Google from crawling the page.
- Indexed, though blocked by robots.txtGoogle indexed the URL from links, but robots.txt stops Google from reading it.
- Not found (404)The URL returns a 404 Not Found error.
- Server error (5xx)The server returned an error when Google requested the page.
- Redirect errorThe redirect chain for this URL is broken, too long, or loops.
- Blocked due to unauthorized request (401)The page requires a login, so Google cannot read it.
- Blocked due to access forbidden (403)The server refused Google's request with 403 Forbidden.
- Blocked due to other 4xx issueThe server returned a 4xx error other than 401, 403, or 404.
Often expected
These are usually correct, but check that the sitemap lists only final URLs.