Google Indexing: How to Check It and Improve It

For your web pages to appear in search results when users enter relevant queries, they must be indexed. If your site isn’t in Google’s index, your target audience won’t find it — no matter how useful or relevant your content may be.

Indexing in Google is a critical component of SEO and requires a solid grasp of technical details and a systematic approach. In this article, we’ll cover how to check and properly manage indexing, as well as how to accelerate the appearance of new landing pages in search results.

What Indexing Is and How It Works

Indexing is the process of adding a website to the database of a search engine such as Google or Bing. For Google to index your pages, its crawlers (bots) must first discover and crawl them. Discovery happens by following links from known sources or by submitting your site through Google Search Console.

During a crawl, Googlebot reviews each newly created or updated page, evaluates links and content, and stores that information. Later, when a user searches, Google rapidly scans its index and returns the most relevant results.

Why — and How Often — you should Check Indexing

Checking indexing ensures your website and its individual pages are accessible to search engines and eligible to appear for relevant queries. If a page isn’t indexed, it can’t drive organic traffic — undermining the value of your SEO efforts.

To keep your SEO strategy effective, it’s wise to monitor indexing status daily. Technical errors or policy violations can lead to deindexing without your knowledge. Regular lightweight checks help prevent larger problems (and higher costs) down the road. Here’s how to verify indexing.

Ways to Check Indexing

You can verify indexing in several ways:

1. The site: operator in Google. Type site:yourdomain.com in Google. This shows pages Google reports as indexed. While not 100% precise, it’s useful for spotting pages that should be excluded (but aren’t) and for getting a rough view of a competitor’s indexed footprint.

2. Google Search Console (GSC). If you own a site, register it in this free tool. You’ll see how Google views your property, including page indexing reports and detected issues. To review indexing, open the Indexing → Pages report to see counts of indexed and not indexed pages.

3. Bing Webmaster Tools. The Site Explorer feature reveals your site’s structure and shows indexing status, errors, and other metrics by section.

For a single page, use URL Inspection to see crawl, indexing, and structured data issues. You can also request (re)indexing after you update a page.

Tools like Ahrefs, SEMrush, and others can help monitor indexing trends and uncover potential problems.

How to Check if a Specific Page Is Indexed

1. Sign in to Google Search Console.
2. Enter the page URL in the URL Inspection field.
3. Review the results.

If the page isn’t indexed, Google will surface reasons and guidance to help you resolve the issue.

How to Speed Up Indexing in Google

First, a quick note on adding a site to Google’s index: register your property in Search Console, add your site, and verify ownership following Google’s prompts.

• To accelerate indexing:
• Choose high-quality hosting.
• Optimize your robots.txt file.
• Add important pages to sitemap.xml.
• Remove unnecessary noindex directives.
• Update content regularly.
• Build effective internal links to help crawlers discover new pages.
• Earn external links by publishing content on third-party sites and sharing through social media.

Factors that can negatively impact indexing include:

• Technical errors, including duplicate pages.
• Slow page speed.
• Non-unique or low-value content that doesn’t serve user needs.

Noticing poor indexing and can’t pinpoint why? Order a technical audit from Sprava Agency. Our specialists will analyze your site in detail, identify issues blocking indexing, and optimize your structure and content. We’ll help ensure your pages consistently make it into the results — and implement everything needed to grow qualified organic traffic on request.