GlossarySEO
What is the Page indexing report in Search Console?
Also called: Index coverage report, Coverage report, Pages report, Why pages aren't indexed
Definition
The Page indexing report in Search Console shows how many of your known URLs are indexed and groups the rest by the reason they aren't, like noindex, redirect, duplicate, 404 or crawled but not indexed.
Page indexing report, explained
It replaced the older Index coverage report, and it's under Indexing → Pages. The chart shows indexed and not-indexed counts over time. Below it, "Why pages aren't indexed" lists each reason with a count. Click a reason to see example URLs, inspect them, and after fixing, click Validate fix. Google's help page says validation typically takes up to about two weeks, but can take much longer.
The key is knowing which reasons are problems. Many are healthy: "Alternate page with proper canonical tag" and "Page with redirect" usually mean your setup works; "Excluded by 'noindex' tag" is fine if you noindexed on purpose; "Not found (404)" is fine for deleted pages. The ones worth attention are "Crawled – currently not indexed" and "Discovered – currently not indexed" in large numbers, "Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user", "Soft 404", "Server error (5xx)", "Redirect error" and anything you meant to be indexed that appears under a reason at all.
Filter the report by sitemap to see indexing rates per section. That's the fastest way to find a weak page family: if one sitemap is mostly indexed and another mostly isn't, the problem is that template or that content.
This is the report where we watched indexing get throttled on our own product after publishing about 2,500 posts in one month. The fix wasn't clicking Validate; it was slowing the pace and noindexing near-duplicates.
Why it matters for founders
It's the clearest view of whether Google wants your pages. Reading it correctly stops you from fixing healthy statuses and missing real problems.
Example
Filtering by sitemap shows your blog is 90% indexed and your 500 city pages are 15% indexed, mostly "Crawled – currently not indexed". You rework the city pages instead of the blog.
Common mistakes
- Treating every not-indexed reason as an error.
- Clicking Validate fix without changing anything.
- Not filtering by sitemap to compare sections.
- Checking only the total indexed count.
Sources
Checked
Related terms
- Crawled – currently not indexed"Crawled – currently not indexed" is a Google Search Console status meaning Google fetched the page but chose not to add it to the index. It may be indexed later; resubmitting it won't force that.
- Discovered – currently not indexed"Discovered – currently not indexed" is a Search Console status meaning Google knows the URL exists but hasn't crawled it yet, typically because crawling it then was expected to overload the site.
- IndexingIndexing is when a search engine analyzes a crawled page and stores it in its index, the database it serves results from. A page that isn't indexed can't appear in search results.
- Sitemap indexA sitemap index is an XML file that lists other sitemap files instead of pages. It lets large sites split URLs across several sitemaps and submit them all through one file.