Crawled, currently not indexed: what it means and how to fix it
Crawled - currently not indexed means Google visited your page but didn't add it to its index. What it means, when to ignore it, and how to fix it.
"Crawled - currently not indexed" means Google visited your page, read it, and decided not to add it to its index for now. Google's own definition adds that it "may or may not be indexed in the future" and that there's no need to resubmit the URL. The fix depends on whether the page deserves to be indexed: improve and link to the pages that matter, and ignore the ones that don't.
This guide shows how to find the affected pages, decide which ones matter, and what to change.
What the status actually tells you
The Page indexing report in Search Console lists reasons why URLs aren't indexed. Two similar ones are often confused. Google's Page indexing report help defines them like this:
- Crawled - currently not indexed: the page was crawled by Google but not indexed. It may or may not be indexed in the future.
- Discovered - currently not indexed: the page was found but not crawled yet. Typically Google wanted to crawl it but expected that to overload the site, so it rescheduled. That's why the last crawl date is empty.
Notice what's missing from the first definition: a reason. Google doesn't say why it chose not to index a page, and it doesn't publish a fix for this status. So the honest approach is to check the common problems yourself, in order, and judge the page against Google's guidance on helpful content.
Why it matters, and when it doesn't
If an important page is stuck here, it can't appear in search at all, so nothing else you do for it will help. But the status is also very common and often harmless.
Google says plainly in the same help page that you shouldn't expect every URL on your site to be indexed. Some URLs are duplicates, or don't contain meaningful information. What matters is that your key pages are indexed. The help page also says that if your site has fewer than 500 pages you probably don't need the report much, and suggests checking with a site: search instead.
So the first question is not "how do I fix this?" but "do I care about this page?"
How to find the affected pages
- Open the Page indexing report in Search Console.
- In the Why pages aren't indexed table, click Crawled - currently not indexed.
- The details page lists example URLs. Google notes the list is limited to 1,000 rows and isn't guaranteed to show every URL with that status, so treat it as a sample.
- Export or copy the list, and mark each URL: important, unimportant, or not sure.
You can narrow the report to the pages you submitted in a sitemap using the dropdown above the chart. Google lists the options as All known pages, All submitted pages, Unsubmitted pages only and a specific sitemap. Pages you put in a sitemap are usually pages you want indexed, so this is a quick way to find the ones that matter.
Is it worth fixing? A quick decision
| What the URL is | What to do |
|---|---|
| A duplicate or near-duplicate of another page | Pick the version you want, and use a redirect or canonical. See Google's guide to canonical URLs. |
A filtered or sorted variation (for example ?sort=price) | Usually leave it alone. Google's indexing help says variations of a page with filters are inappropriate to index. |
| A thin page with little unique content | Improve it, merge it into a stronger page, or accept it won't be indexed. |
| A useful page with real content that you want to rank | Work through the checks below. |
| A tag, archive or internal search page | Usually fine to leave unindexed. |
The checks to run on a page you care about
Work through these in order. Stop when you find something.
Check 1: Inspect the URL
Paste the URL into the inspection bar at the top of Search Console. Look at Page indexing, Crawled as, Last crawl and Google-selected canonical. If the canonical is a different URL from the one you inspected, Google sees this page as a duplicate, and you should fix the duplication first. Our guide to keyword cannibalisation covers pages that overlap.
Then click Test live URL. If the live page returns an error, is blocked, or has a noindex directive, fix that and request indexing. If the live test is fine, the problem is the page itself.
Check 2: Is the page useful on its own?
Google's guide to helpful, reliable, people-first content lists questions to ask. Several apply directly. Does the page give a substantial, complete description of the topic? Does it add value compared with other pages in search results? Does it avoid simply copying or rewriting other sources? A page that restates what ten others already say gives Google little reason to keep another copy.
This is the most common honest answer for pages stuck in this status, but remember Google doesn't confirm it for any individual page.
Check 3: Is it linked from somewhere that matters?
A page with no links from your own site tells Google it isn't important. Link to it from relevant pages with descriptive anchor text, and from your navigation if it deserves a place there. Make sure your sitemap includes it.
Check 4: Is it distinct from nearby pages?
If you have twenty location pages or product pages that differ only by a name, Google may keep some and skip the rest. Make each page say something the others don't, or merge them.
Check 5: Does the page load properly?
If you use a JavaScript framework, confirm the content is in the rendered HTML Google sees. Use View crawled page in the URL Inspection tool to see what Google fetched.
After you change something
- Make the improvement.
- In URL Inspection, click Request indexing once. Google says requests have a daily limit, repeating a request for the same URL won't speed things up, and a request doesn't guarantee indexing. If you've changed many pages, submit or update a sitemap with
lastmodinstead. - If you fixed the same issue across many pages, go back to the Crawled - currently not indexed details page and click Validate fix. Google says validation typically takes up to about two weeks and can take much longer, and warns not to click Validate fix again until validation has succeeded or failed.
- Annotate the Performance chart with the date, and check back in a few weeks. Our guide on how to measure whether an SEO change worked shows how.
A worked example
This is an illustrative example, not real data.
A founder with a 120-page software site opens the Page indexing report and finds 18 URLs under Crawled - currently not indexed. She marks them:
- 9 are
?utm_source=and?ref=variations of pages that are indexed. These are duplicates. She leaves them alone. - 4 are old tag pages. She leaves them too.
- 3 are comparison pages ("X vs Y") that she wrote quickly last month. They're short and mostly list features that are already on the product page.
- 2 are new guides with no internal links.
She focuses on the last five. For the comparison pages she adds real testing notes and pricing differences, so each page has something the product page doesn't. For the guides she links to them from two relevant posts and the blog index, and confirms they're in the sitemap. Then she requests indexing once for each and checks the report again in two weeks.
Common mistakes
- Panicking about every URL. Google says not every URL needs to be indexed. Fix pages that matter.
- Resubmitting over and over. There's a daily quota, and repeating the request doesn't help.
- Fixing the tag, not the page. If the live test is clean, adding more technical markup won't help. The page needs to be more useful.
- Treating it as a penalty. A penalty shows up as a manual action, not here.
- Not linking to the page. Orphan pages tend to be treated as unimportant.
If this is part of a bigger drop
If many pages recently moved into this status along with a traffic drop, check the other causes in Google's guide to debugging traffic drops, and use our guide to finding declining pages. If a single search has vanished rather than a set of pages, our checklist for when a keyword disappears from Search Console is the better start, and our Google Search Console guide for founders explains the reports mentioned here.
Doing this every week? Sense Console does it automatically
Sense Console doesn't check indexing. It reads only your Search Console search performance data, not the Page indexing report or the URL Inspection tool, so it can't tell you a page is "Crawled - currently not indexed". What it can show is the effect: if a search that had real impressions in the previous 28 days drops to zero, it flags that as a lost search opportunity and suggests checking whether the page was changed, redirected or de-indexed. Use the steps above for the indexing check itself.
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Frequently asked questions
Does Crawled - currently not indexed mean my page has a penalty?
No. Google's help describes it as a page that was crawled but not indexed, which may or may not be indexed in the future. A penalty would appear as a manual action in its own report.
Should I keep clicking Request indexing?
No. Google says requesting a recrawl more than once for the same URL won't make it crawled faster, there is a daily limit, and a request doesn't guarantee the page will be indexed. Improve the page first, then request once.
How is it different from Discovered - currently not indexed?
With Crawled, Google visited the page and chose not to index it for now. With Discovered, Google knows the URL but hasn't crawled it yet, usually because it expected the crawl to overload the site, so the last crawl date is empty.
Do I need to fix every page with this status?
No. Google says not to expect every URL on your site to be indexed. Fix pages that matter to your business and let the rest be, especially duplicates, thin utility pages and filtered variations.