What Is a Non-Indexed Page and How to Get Google Index It

To appear at the most prominent place in the search results, Google must understand what you offer on your website first by doing crawling and indexing. After that, according to the guidelines, Google will determine whether or not you deserve to appear on the first page. 

Yet, is it possible for pages not indexed by Google? The answer is yes and it is called non-indexed pages. This issue will prevent you from ranking higher. Therefore, you must know what is a non-indexed page to avoid experiencing it. Read this article to explore more about non-indexed pages!

What Is a Non-Indexed Page?

A non-indexed page is a page that is not part of Google’s search index. These pages do not show up in search results and are not taken into account for search engine rankings. Usually, new websites and pages are not yet indexed by Google. 

Google needs some time to go through and index every one of the millions of domains that are out there to provide the best results for their visitors.

It may take some time for newly added or changed pages to be indexed if you have updated your sitemap. However, there might be a more serious problem with the quality of your pages or the organization of your sitemap if Google continues to designate the pages in your sitemap as "non-indexed" after some time has passed. 

In addition, there are some potential factors why pages aren’t indexed, such as crawling and indexing problems, thin content, and duplicate content. 

Moreover, some pages are often not indexed by Google, such as blog category pages, blog author pages, 404 or server errors pages, pages indexed under another domain, pages that instruct Google to disregard them through coding or a canonical tag, and poor page quality, redundant, or similar content over multiple pages.

Therefore, enhancing the website structure, adding more content, and implementing technical fixes for these problems will improve the page indexing and make them more visible to potential users.

Then, what does “crawled but not indexed” mean? Although Google has visited your page, it has not yet been indexed. Google does not index every URL that we submit, so it is rather typical to see some URLs with this status. To be clear, this is more of a justification for Google excluding the page or pages from its index than it is an error.

Should All Pages Be Indexed?

The answer to this is no because some pages like duplicate ones should not be indexed. In addition, pages that store sensitive information and are not meant to be seen by the public should not be indexed too. 

In this case, you can put the noindex tags to prevent Google from indexing some pages you have on your website. 

What Happens When Your Pages Are Not Indexed?

Now that you already know what is a non-indexed page, you should also know what happens if you encounter one. When your pages are not indexed, they will not come up in the search results. For this reason, it will be difficult to improve your online presence and organic traffic. 

Furthermore, if certain pages are not indexed, the intended audience will have difficulty finding any important information or content on them.

To optimize online visibility and reach, it is critical to quickly resolve the problems causing non-indexation and make sure all pertinent pages are reachable and visible to search engines.

How to Get Google to Index Your Pages?

If you are facing “crawled but aren’t indexed”, there are some tactics you can do to make Google index your pages, such as:

1. Produce High-Quality Content

The first effort is producing high-quality content by matching the piece to the search intent and providing valuable information. Most importantly, you must include relevant information to users, such as answering what users are looking for. 

Remember that one of the causes that Google does index your page is that your content is too thin. Therefore, improve the thin content by expanding or updating the information. 

In addition to the content, you must also optimize the meta tags and user experience to create high-quality content. You can create accurate and captivating meta titles and descriptions that convey the page's content to search engines and users alike.

Then, make sure that your content incorporates keywords, is readable, visually appealing, and responsive to many devices. 

2. Fix the Technical Issues

Commonly, a non-indexed page occurs due to technical issues like 404 server errors. In this case, you must fix it immediately to be able to be indexed. You can also resubmit sitemaps for better indexing and fix the incorrect URL structures. 

Additionally, it is also crucial to make sure the website has a clear and readable robots.txt file.  These technical improvements contribute to improving web pages' overall indexability and visibility on Google Search Console.

3. Repair the Website Structure

The next factor why your page is not indexed is due to bad site structure. A well-designed website is essential to increasing the likelihood that it will be indexed. It makes it easier for search engine bots to find your content and comprehend how pages relate to one another.

Moreover, you must ensure that every page you want to be indexed with proper internal links. Consider this scenario: Although Google might visit and crawl the page, it would believe it is less valuable than other pages since it lacks internal links. 

Semantic or structural data are absent from the page, making evaluation difficult. That may be one of the reasons Google, after crawling the page, chose to concentrate on other pages and excluded this one from the index.

4. Fix the Crawling and Indexing Issues

Crawling and indexing issues become one of the common hindrances for pages to be indexed. To resolve this, make sure that critical pages can be accessed by your robots.txt file and clear out any inadvertent obstructions

Furthermore, you must look for and quickly fix server issues. Make sure that the XML sitemaps are properly formatted and published to Google Search Console as this could be another indexing problem. 

5. Work on Duplicate Content

Not only thin content but duplicate one also causes indexing problems. This is because Google strives to show relevant and original content. It may therefore only index one page when several are exactly the same. 

To fix duplicate content, you can evaluate the canonical tags, internal links, and XML sitemaps. Make sure the internal links connect to the original content and the XML sitemaps only contain canonical tags. 

Those are the detailed information about what is a non-indexed page. To ensure that your content is indexable and can appear in the search results, you should fix the technical and content issues by doing regular site audit. With that, you can improve your rank gradually. 

If you want to develop your site with SEO and ensure its position in search results, SEO Services by cmlabs can be your go-to solution. Not only will our SEO experts make sure your website works properly, but we also make sure you can rule the online market in your niche. To go over your SEO requirements in further detail, schedule a meeting right now!