What Google Search Console Is
Search Console is Google's free tool for monitoring how your site appears in Google Search. It tells you which pages are in the index, what queries they're showing up for, how many clicks they get, and most usefully when you're starting out: why specific pages aren't being indexed.
What it isn't: a real-time tool. Data in Search Console runs 2–4 days behind. It also isn't a rank tracker. It shows your performance data within Google Search, but it won't tell you where you stand against competitors for a given keyword.
Before anything else, you need to verify ownership. The easiest method for most sites is adding a DNS TXT record through your domain registrar. Alternatively, you can upload an HTML file to your server or add a <meta name=“google-site-verification”> tag to your site's <head>. Once verified, submit your sitemap and give it a few days to start populating with data.
The Pages Indexing Report
Find it at Indexing → Pages in the left nav. The report splits your URLs into two buckets:
- Indexed — pages Google has confirmed are in its index and eligible to show up in search results.
- Not indexed — pages Google knows about but isn't showing in results, with a reason for each group.
Below the chart is a table called “Why pages aren't indexed.” Each row is a reason, with a page count next to it. Click a row to see the actual URLs behind that reason; the overview itself shows only the counts.
Common “Not Indexed” Reasons
Discovered — currently not indexed
Google knows about the URL but hasn't crawled it yet. This can happen because the site has limited crawl budget, weak internal linking, low authority, slow server response times, or simply because the page is new. Newer and less-established sites are often crawled less aggressively than larger sites with strong authority and frequent content updates. For very small sites, crawl budget is rarely a hard ceiling, but Google still prioritizes crawl resources based on perceived importance.
On this site, 3 pages showed up under this reason when the sitemap was first submitted: the blog index, the projects page, and one of the blog posts. The source was listed as “Google systems,” meaning Google discovered them from the sitemap rather than from an external link.
Fix: Before requesting indexing, make sure the page is linked from at least one crawlable page on your site. URLs that only exist in a sitemap often take longer to be crawled than URLs that are part of your internal link structure. Then use the URL Inspection tool to place the URL into a priority crawl queue (covered below).
Page with redirect
Google discovered a URL that responds with a 301 or 302 redirect. It won't index the redirect URL itself, only the destination. On most sites these are the non-www versions of your pages (e.g., http://yoursite.com/ redirecting to https://www.yoursite.com/).
On yanakrukovets.com, 3 pages appeared under this reason — all non-www variants that redirect to the canonical https://www. URLs. The source was listed as “Website,” meaning Google found them by following links rather than from the sitemap (the sitemap only lists the www versions).
This is not a real problem. Google follows the redirect, indexes the canonical destination, and the redirect URLs won't appear in search results. You can ignore them.
Crawled — currently not indexed
Google visited and rendered the page but chose not to include it in the index. This is the reason worth investigating.
Common causes:
- Thin or duplicate content — a page with very little unique text, a stub page, or content that closely mirrors other indexed pages on your site.
- Soft 404 — the server returns a
200status but the page has no real content: empty category pages, search result pages showing “nothing found,” or thin programmatically generated pages. - Weak internal linking — pages with few or no internal links are harder for Google to evaluate and are more likely to be skipped.
- Low perceived value — sometimes the page is technically valid but Google determines it doesn't add enough unique value compared with other indexed pages on the same topic.
Fix: Improve the content and make sure the page is linked from other crawlable pages on your site. A clear purpose, a meaningful title and meta description, and real substance for the reader are the baseline. Then request re-indexing via URL Inspection.
Duplicate without user-selected canonical
Google found multiple URLs serving near-identical content and decided to index only one of them, not necessarily the one you wanted. Common causes: tracking parameters creating duplicate URLs (/page?utm_source=twitter vs /page), or paginated content variants (/blog/page/1/ vs /blog/).
Fix: Add a <link rel=“canonical”> tag pointing to the preferred URL on every affected page. Canonical tags are hints, not directives. Google treats them as a strong signal but may choose a different canonical if its systems determine another URL is a better representative. That said, consistent canonicals are the right tool here. One thing to watch: if your sitemap lists URL A, your canonical points to URL B, and your internal links point to URL C, Google gets conflicting signals. Keep all three aligned on the same version. If you're on Next.js, the SEO post covers how to set canonicals correctly using the Layout component so they apply across every page without repetition.
Excluded by “noindex” tag
The page has <meta name=“robots” content=“noindex”> in its HTML. Google respects it and skips the page entirely.
Fix: If you actually want the page indexed, remove the tag. If it's intentional (staging pages, admin routes, 404 and 500 error pages), leave it alone. That's the tag working as designed.
Blocked by robots.txt
If a URL is blocked in your robots.txt file, Google may not be able to crawl the page at all, which means it can't evaluate the content to decide whether to index it. When diagnosing an indexing problem, check both robots.txt (accessible at /robots.txt on your domain) and the page-level robots meta tag. They block crawling through different mechanisms: robots.txt tells Googlebot not to fetch the page's content (though Google can still discover and list the URL from external links, just without a snippet); the noindex meta tag lets Google fetch the page but instructs it not to index what it finds.
URL Inspection — How to Request Indexing
The URL Inspection tool is in the left nav. Paste any URL from your verified property (it must match exactly — including https:// and www if your site uses them) and Search Console will show you:
- Whether the URL is indexed
- When Googlebot last crawled it
- How Google rendered the page after executing JavaScript — useful for React, Next.js, and other frameworks where content is client-rendered rather than served as static HTML
- Any crawl or indexing errors
If the page isn't indexed yet, click “Request Indexing.” This places the URL into a priority crawl queue, which often results in faster crawling. Google does not guarantee indexing or a specific timeline — treat it as a nudge, not a switch.
One thing to keep in mind: requesting indexing for the same URL repeatedly doesn't help. Submit once, wait 3–5 days, then check the report again to confirm the page was crawled.
Submitting Your Sitemap
A sitemap is an XML file listing every URL you want Google to discover. For a small site with limited internal linking, it's the most reliable way to make sure Google finds all your pages rather than only the ones linked from the homepage.
Go to Indexing → Sitemaps and submit the full URL (e.g., https://www.yoursite.com/sitemap.xml). Search Console will show a status. “Success” means it parsed the file without errors. It does not mean all the URLs inside it are indexed; discovery and indexing are separate steps.
If you're on Next.js with the Pages Router, the SEO post walks through the static sitemap.xml approach — a hand-maintained file in the public/ folder that works without any extra dependencies.
One common point of confusion: submitting a sitemap gives Google a list of URLs to consider. Whether and when it crawls them is still Google's call. A sitemap gets your pages discovered faster; URL Inspection gets specific pages crawled faster.
What to Ignore
Not every entry in the “not indexed” list requires action. A few that are almost always safe to ignore:
- Page with redirect — as covered above, this is expected behavior. The destination URL is what gets indexed.
- Alternate page with proper canonical tag — Google found a duplicate but you've already told it which version to use. It's doing what you asked.
- Page with noindex for error pages and admin routes — these are intentionally excluded and should stay that way.
The ones worth acting on are “Crawled — currently not indexed” (a content quality signal) and “Discovered — currently not indexed” for pages you want indexed quickly.
Frequently Asked Questions
How long does it take Google to index a new page?
It varies. For a new site with little authority, a few days to a few weeks is normal. For an established site, new pages often get indexed within 1–3 days, especially if you submit them through URL Inspection. Submitting a sitemap helps Google discover all your URLs at once, but discovery and indexing are separate steps — Google can know a URL exists for days before it actually crawls and indexes it.
What is the difference between “Discovered — currently not indexed” and “Crawled — currently not indexed”?
“Discovered — currently not indexed” means Google found the URL but hasn't visited it yet — it's in the crawl queue. “Crawled — currently not indexed” means Google actually visited and rendered the page but decided not to include it in the index. The second one is more serious: it usually means Google found a quality issue — thin content, near-duplicate pages, or a page without a clear topic.
Do I need to request indexing for every new page I publish?
Not strictly. Google will eventually find and index pages on its own via your sitemap and internal links. For pages you want crawled sooner, requesting indexing through URL Inspection places the URL into a priority crawl queue. Google does not guarantee faster indexing, but it's worth doing for important pages. Don't submit the same URL repeatedly; once is enough. Wait a few days and check URL Inspection to confirm it was crawled.
Why does “Page with redirect” appear in my not-indexed list?
Google discovered a URL that responds with a redirect (301 or 302) and won't index the redirect itself — only the destination. This is almost always the non-www version of your pages (e.g., http://yoursite.com/ redirecting to https://www.yoursite.com/). It looks alarming but it isn't a problem. Google follows the redirect, indexes the canonical destination, and the redirect URLs won't appear in search results.