What does "Discovered - currently not indexed" mean?

What does "Discovered - currently not indexed" mean?

This status, reported in Google Search Console's Page indexing report, signifies that Google's web crawlers have located a URL on your site. However, Google has not yet completed the subsequent step of indexing that page. Google Search is an automated search engine that uses software known as web crawlers to regularly explore the web and find pages to add to its index.

Crawling is the process where Google downloads text, images, and videos from pages it finds on the internet. Indexing is the next step, where Google analyzes the content of the page and stores this information in the Google index, which is a large database. For a page to be eligible to appear in Google Search results or other Google services like Discover, it must first be indexed. Therefore, "Discovered - currently not indexed" means the page is in a queue, waiting for this analysis and storage process to occur.

Why might a page be discovered but not indexed?

A page might be discovered but not indexed for several reasons, ranging from Google's processing priorities to specific issues with the page itself. Google does not guarantee that it will crawl, index, or serve any page, even if the page follows Google's guidelines. This status can indicate that the page is awaiting processing, or that Google has identified a reason not to index it.

Common indexing issues that can lead to a page not being indexed include low quality content, robots meta rules that disallow indexing, or a website design that makes indexing difficult. Google also avoids indexing pages that are duplicates of other pages on your site, or pages that are inappropriate to index, such as variations with different filters applied. During the indexing process, Google determines if a page is a duplicate of another page on the internet or if it is the canonical version.

Technical problems can also prevent indexing. For example, a server error means that Googlebot couldn't access your URL, the request timed out, or your site was busy. Additionally, some pages may be disallowed for crawling by the site owner, or they may not be accessible without logging in to the site, which can prevent Google from fully processing them for indexing.

How to check the indexing status of a specific page?

To determine the exact indexing status of a particular page on your website, you can use Google's URL Inspection tool. This tool provides detailed information about how Google sees a specific URL.

The URL Inspection tool is also useful for requesting that Google recrawl a page, especially if you have recently added or made changes to it. Furthermore, if you have implemented a noindex rule to prevent a page from appearing in search results, you can use this tool to verify that your noindex implementation is correct by seeing the HTML Googlebot received during its crawl.

How to request indexing for individual pages?

If your pages are showing as "Discovered - currently not indexed" and you want them to appear in search results, you can take steps to encourage Google to index them. For a new website, the best first step is to request indexing of your homepage, which should prompt Google to start crawling your entire site. If you have recently added or made changes to a page, you can request that Google re-index it.

You can request a crawl of individual URLs using the URL Inspection tool. However, keep in mind that there is a quota for submitting individual URLs, and requesting a recrawl multiple times for the same URL will not make it crawl any faster. Crawling can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, and requesting a crawl does not guarantee immediate inclusion in search results, or even inclusion at all.

How do sitemaps help with page discovery and indexing?

For websites with many URLs, submitting a sitemap is an important way for Google to discover pages on your site. A sitemap can be very helpful if you have just launched your site or recently performed a site move. When creating a sitemap, you are telling search engines about which URLs you prefer to show in search results. If you have the same content accessible under different URLs, you should choose the preferred URL and include only that one in the sitemap.

Google supports sitemap formats defined by the sitemaps protocol. Each sitemap is limited to 50MB (uncompressed) or 50,000 URLs; if you have more, you must break your sitemap into multiple files. You can submit a sitemap in Search Console using the Sitemaps report, and if you encounter any issues, you can investigate errors with Google Search Console.

What technical considerations affect indexing?

Finally, ensure your pages are accessible to Googlebot. Google does not index pages that are blocked by a robots.txt rule. If you intend to use a noindex tag to prevent indexing, the page must not be blocked by robots.txt, as the crawler needs to access the page to see the noindex rule. If robots.txt blocks the page, the crawler will never see the noindex rule, and the page could still appear in search results if other pages link to it. Google does not support specifying the noindex rule within the robots.txt file itself.

If a page is still appearing in search results despite a noindex rule, it is probably because Google has not crawled the page since you added the rule. In such cases, requesting a recrawl using the URL Inspection tool can help Google discover the updated instruction.

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