How do you check if your pages are actually indexed?
What 'indexed' actually means in practice
'Indexed' means Google has crawled your page, evaluated it, and decided to store it in its database as a result it can potentially show to searchers. Being indexed doesn't guarantee appearing for any specific query — it just means Google has the page in its inventory and can choose to show it. A page that's indexed but showing for queries you didn't intend, or not showing for queries you did intend, has content or relevance issues rather than an indexing problem. The first diagnostic question is always: is the page indexed at all, or is the problem something else?
How to check multiple pages' indexation at once
Checking individual URLs in Search Console is practical for a handful of pages but doesn't scale to hundreds. For bulk checking, Search Console's Index Coverage report (now called Pages) gives a site-wide view: the total pages indexed, and — more usefully — the pages that are not indexed, broken down by the specific reason for each. Common not-indexed categories include 'Crawled - currently not indexed' (Google visited but decided not to include it, usually a quality signal), 'Excluded by robots.txt' (the page is blocked), and 'Redirect' (the URL is a redirect to another URL, which is normal and expected).
Why pages can disappear from Google's index after being indexed
Indexation isn't permanent. Google continuously re-evaluates pages, and a page it previously indexed can be removed from the index if: the page now returns a 404 or other error, a noindex tag has been added since it was first indexed, the content has been thinned to the point where Google no longer considers it worth indexing, or the page has gone so long without any links or traffic signal that Google has deprioritised re-crawling it. Regular indexation checks, particularly after site changes, help catch these quiet disappearances before they become sustained traffic problems.
Key Takeaways
- 'Indexed' means stored in Google's database — not necessarily ranking for specific queries.
- Search Console's Pages report gives a site-wide indexation view broken down by reason.
- Pages can be deindexed quietly — regular checks catch problems before they become traffic drops.