Crawled - currently not indexed: what it means and how to fix it
Crawled - currently not indexed means Google fetched the page and chose not to index it. Triage by URL pattern, then merge, noindex or improve each page.
LLaunchScaler·Published ·9 min read
Crawled - currently not indexed means Googlebot fetched the page, read it, and decided not to add it to Google's index for now. Nothing is technically broken, so the fix is to change what Google judged: take duplicate and low-value URLs out of the pile, make the pages you keep worth indexing, and link them from pages Google already indexes.
That verdict usually covers a whole group of URLs built from the same template or parameter, so work out which groups you are looking at before you edit a single page.
What does "Crawled - currently not indexed" mean?
It means the crawl worked and indexing was declined. Search Console's help puts it in one line: "The page was crawled by Google but not indexed. It may or may not be indexed in the future; no need to resubmit this URL for crawling." The server answered, the page loaded, and Google chose not to store it.
That separates it from its neighbour in the Page indexing report. Discovered - currently not indexed means Google knows the URL but has not fetched it yet, so the last crawl date is empty. Here the last crawl date is filled in. Google has already seen your content, which is why asking it to look again changes little on its own.
Google does not give a per-URL reason for the decision. What it does document are the cases it leaves out on purpose: duplicate copies of a page, "variations of a page with different filters applied", and pages that, even when crawled, lack "sufficient value or user demand for the content." Every fix below targets one of those.
Request indexing asks Google to crawl the page again, and crawling was never the problem here. If the content is the same, the second crawl usually leads to the same decision. Google says requesting a recrawl "does not guarantee that inclusion in search results will happen instantly or even at all," and that its systems "prioritize the fast inclusion of high quality, useful content."
Two more limits apply. There is a quota for individual URL submissions, and "requesting a recrawl multiple times for the same URL won't get it crawled any faster." Use the request once per page, after you have actually changed that page, and spend the rest of your effort on the changes.
Questions, answered
What people ask about this
01
What does crawled currently not indexed mean?
It means Googlebot fetched the page and Google decided not to add it to its index for now. Google's help says the page may or may not be indexed in the future and that there is no need to resubmit the URL.
Group the affected URLs by the template or parameter that produced them, then decide per group. Most rows in this report are dominated by two or three patterns, such as ?sort= variants or /tag/ archives, and one decision about a pattern settles hundreds of URLs at once. Editing pages one at a time before you know the patterns wastes days.
In Search Console, open Indexing, then Pages, and click the "Crawled - currently not indexed" row.
Set the sitemap filter above the chart to "All submitted pages" to see which affected URLs you asked Google to index, then to "Unsubmitted pages only" to see the ones Google found on its own.
Click Export. The example table holds at most 1,000 rows and is not guaranteed to list every affected URL, so treat the export as a sample.
In a spreadsheet, sort the URLs and tag each one by pattern: pagination, sort or filter parameters, tag and author archives, near-identical templates, and real content pages.
Count each tag. The biggest group is where one change does the most.
Pattern
Typical URLs
Usually the right call
Pagination
/blog/page/7/, /shop?page=4
Leave them. Google tells you to give each page in a sequence its own canonical and link the pages in order. Deep pagination pages staying out of the index is normal; what matters is that the items they list are indexed.
Sort and filter parameters
?sort=price, ?filter=red, ?color=blue&size=m
Point rel="canonical" at the unfiltered URL, or, if you never need them crawled, disallow the parameters in robots.txt as Google's faceted navigation guide shows.
Tag, category and author archives
/tag/tips/, /author/sam/
Add noindex to archives that only repeat post excerpts. Keep a category indexable only if you turn it into a real hub with its own intro and structure.
Near-identical templates
City pages or feature pages where only the name changes
Merge them into one page with a 301, or rewrite each so it says something the others do not.
Real content pages
Articles, product pages, landing pages
Judge each page against what already ranks, then expand or rewrite it.
A tip for the parameter group: check how those URLs are linked. Faceted filters rendered as crawlable <a href> links generate a near-unlimited set of URLs, and Google's faceted navigation guide says crawlers "will typically access a very large number of faceted navigation URLs before the crawlers' processes determine the URLs are in fact useless."
How do you judge a single page Google declined?
Search the query the page is meant to answer and read the top results. Then ask Google's own question from its helpful content guidance: "Does the content provide substantial value when compared to other pages in search results?" If your page says less, says the same thing, or answers a narrower question, that is the likeliest reason it was left out.
Google says it has no preferred word count ("No, we don't"), so length is not the test. Coverage is. A 120-word explainer page almost never gives what Google calls "a substantial, complete, or comprehensive description of the topic," because it cannot fit the steps, examples and edge cases a searcher needs. The thin content guide covers how to tell a short page that answers fully from a short page that does not.
Before rewriting, rule out a rendering problem. In URL Inspection, click Test live URL, then View tested page, and read the HTML and screenshot. If the main text is missing because a script or API call failed for Googlebot, Google judged an empty page, and the fix is the rendering, not the writing.
Run through this per page:
Does the page target a query nobody else on your site targets? If another URL covers the same query, you have a merge, not a rewrite.
Does it answer that query more completely than the current top results?
Does it include something a searcher cannot get elsewhere: your data, your screenshots, your steps from doing the job?
Does the main text appear in the rendered HTML Googlebot sees?
Is it linked from at least one page that is already indexed?
Should you merge, noindex or rewrite each page?
Pick one action per URL, based on whether it should exist as a separate search result. Near-duplicates get merged with a 301 into the strongest version. Pages that must stay on the site but never belong in search get noindex. Pages that should rank get expanded until they beat what ranks now. Pages with no purpose get deleted.
Situation
Action
How
Two or more URLs cover the same query with near-identical content
Merge
Move the best material into one page and 301 the others to it. Google calls redirects "a strong signal that the target of the redirect should become canonical."
A variant must stay reachable (parameters, print views)
Canonical
Add <link rel="canonical"> pointing at the clean URL, in the <head>, as an absolute URL.
Useful to visitors, useless as a search result (thin archives, internal search results)
Noindex
Add <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> and keep the URL crawlable, because Google says a crawler blocked by robots.txt "will never see the noindex rule."
Should rank but says too little
Rewrite
Expand it to cover the full question, with steps, examples and anything first-hand you can add.
Serves no one
Delete
Return 404 or 410 and remove every internal link and sitemap entry pointing at it.
After the change, update your sitemap. Google's troubleshooting guide lists "including URLs in your sitemaps that you don't want to appear in Search" as something to avoid, because it spends crawling on pages you do not want indexed. Redirected, noindexed and deleted URLs come out of the sitemap in the same release.
How do internal links help a page get indexed?
Links tell Google a page matters and give it more context about the page. Google says it uses links "as a signal when determining the relevancy of pages," and its link guidance is direct: "Every page you care about should have a link from at least one other page on your site." A page reachable only through your sitemap or a deep archive sends a weak signal.
For each page you keep:
Find two or three pages on the same topic that are already indexed. Confirm each one in URL Inspection, where it should say "URL is on Google."
Add a link from the body text of those pages to the page you are fixing, with anchor text that names what the page covers.
Use a standard <a href="/path"> link. Google says it can generally only crawl links that are <a> elements with an href.
Link from your hub or category page if the topic has one.
What does "Validation failed" mean for this status?
It means Google rechecked the affected URLs after you clicked Validate fix and a share of them still carried the status. Search Console defines Failed as "a certain threshold of pages still contain this issue, after you clicked Validate." It is not a penalty. Penalties are manual actions, issued by a human reviewer, and Search Console lists them in its separate Manual actions report.
Validation is a weak fit for this status, because the fix is a quality change that Google has to re-evaluate, and a recrawl can end with the same decision. Use it this way:
Finish the pattern decisions first. URLs you redirected or noindexed stop being instances of this issue once Google recrawls them and turn up under Page with redirect or Excluded by 'noindex' tag, which is what you want.
Build a sitemap that lists only the pages you rewrote and want indexed, submit it, and filter the report to that sitemap. Google says a validation against a subset "can complete faster than a request that includes all affected URLs on your site."
Click Validate fix once. Google says validation "typically takes up to about two weeks, but in some cases can take much longer."
If it fails, open See details, read which URLs still carry the status, and judge those pages again. Then click Start new validation.
Check the page before Google looks at it again
Before you ask Google to reconsider a page, check what the page actually sends. Run the free scan on LaunchScaler: give it the URL, no account needed, and it runs 156 checks across 6 of its 7 categories at no cost. Among its search checks are the ones that line up with this status: thin main content (it flags around 120 words on an explanatory page), a missing or cross-pointing canonical, a canonical aimed at a redirected, 404 or noindexed URL, a soft 404, a noindex in the meta tag or header, and a page with too few internal links in its body. It reads your live page rather than Google's index, so fix what it flags, then request indexing for that page once.
Export the affected URLs and group them by pattern first. Redirect near-duplicates into one page, noindex archives and filter URLs you never wanted in search, and rewrite or expand the pages that should rank, then link each of them from pages Google has already indexed.
03
Should I click Request indexing for crawled currently not indexed pages?
Not as the fix. Google already crawled the page and decided against it, so another crawl of the same content usually ends the same way. Request indexing makes sense once, after you have changed the page.
04
What does Validation failed mean for crawled currently not indexed?
It means Google rechecked the URLs after you clicked Validate fix and some still had the status. It is not a penalty: penalties are manual actions, and they appear in the separate Manual actions report.
05
Is crawled currently not indexed a technical error?
No. The page was reachable and Google read it. The status reflects Google's choice about whether the page is worth indexing, usually because it duplicates another URL or adds little compared with pages already in the index.
Discovered - currently not indexed means Google knows the URL but postponed the crawl. Check server capacity in Crawl Stats, then raise demand with links.
Google found duplicate URLs with no canonical and picked one itself. Add one absolute self-referencing canonical per page, and 301 http and www duplicates.
