Indexing is the step where a search engine takes a page it has fetched, works out what it says, and files it in its database of known pages. Only indexed pages can show up in results. If Google has never indexed your page, no amount of keyword work will get it seen.
What happens between a crawl and the index
After crawling downloads a page, Google processes it: it renders the HTML and JavaScript, reads the text, title, headings, links and structured data, and notes the language and whether the page is mobile friendly. It also groups duplicates. When several URLs show the same content, Google picks one canonical version to keep and treats the rest as copies. Finally it decides whether the page is worth storing at all. Google says plainly that it does not index every page it crawls.
A page can be blocked from the index on purpose with a noindex robots meta tag or an X-Robots-Tag HTTP header.
Checking whether a page is indexed
A physiotherapy clinic publishes a new page about sports massage and wants to know if Google has it. In Google Search Console they paste the URL into URL Inspection. The tool reports either "URL is on Google" or a reason it is not, such as "Discovered, currently not indexed" (known but not yet fetched) or "Crawled, currently not indexed" (fetched, but Google chose not to keep it). They can also press Request Indexing, which asks for a recrawl but does not guarantee inclusion.
When indexing deserves your attention
For a ten-page business site, Google usually indexes everything within days to weeks of launch, so a quick check after publishing is enough. It becomes a real issue when key pages are missing from the Pages report, after a redesign that changed URLs, or on larger sites with many similar pages, where "crawled, not indexed" often signals that Google sees the content as thin or repetitive.
Common indexing mistakes
- Leaving a staging noindex on at launch. Site builders and CMSs often hide unfinished sites; forgetting to switch it off hides the live one too.
- Blocking a page in robots.txt to remove it. Google can still index a blocked URL from links, and cannot see a noindex tag it is not allowed to fetch.
- Conflicting canonicals. Pointing a canonical tag at another URL tells Google to index that one instead.
- Spamming Request Indexing. It does not speed up a page Google has judged low value; improving the page does.
Related terms
- Crawling: the fetch that comes before indexing.
- Googlebot: Google's crawler that supplies pages to the index.
- XML sitemap: a list of URLs you want considered for the index.
- Robots.txt: controls crawling, which is not the same as indexing.