When Google finds and processes a page, it may store it in its index. Only indexed pages can appear in search results. Being crawled does not guarantee being indexed.
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How pages get in
Googlebot discovers a URL, fetches it, renders it if needed, then decides whether to keep it. Quality, duplication, directives and technical errors all affect that decision.
Checking your pages
The Pages report in Search Console shows which URLs are indexed and why others are not. The URL Inspection tool explains a single page.
Common mistakes
Counting results from a site: search
That operator is a rough guide. Use Search Console for real figures.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common reasons are duplication, low perceived value, a noindex directive or a canonical pointing elsewhere.
Keep reading
- Indexing: Indexing is when a search engine processes a crawled page and stores it in its index so it can appear in search results.
- Googlebot: Googlebot is the web crawler Google uses to fetch pages for Search. It discovers URLs, downloads them and passes them on to be rendered and indexed.
- Google Search Console: Google’s free tool for site owners that shows which searches bring up a site, how often it is clicked, and whether Google can crawl and index its pages.
- URL Inspection tool: The URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console shows how Google sees one URL: index status, chosen canonical, rendered HTML and crawl details.
- Bing: Bing is Microsoft's search engine. Its index also powers other products, so Bing visibility can matter beyond Bing's own results page.
- Bingbot: Bingbot is the main web crawler for Microsoft's Bing search engine. It fetches pages for Bing's index and identifies itself with a bingbot/2.0 token in its user agent.
- Brand SERP: A brand SERP is the results page people see when they search your company or product name. For a SaaS company it is often the last page a buyer checks before booking a demo.
- Brave Search: Brave Search is a privacy-focused search engine from the maker of the Brave browser that runs its own independent web index.
