Free tool · Technical SEO
Indexing Checker: is your page indexable?
One URL at a time. I fetch the page, its robots.txt and sitemap from my server, the way a crawler would. Nothing is saved.
The checks
What the checker looks at, and why each one matters
HTTP status
Google only indexes pages that return 200. A 404, 410 or 5xx is a hard stop, and a soft 404 (a 200 page that says "not found") usually gets dropped too.
Redirects
Each hop is shown with its status. One permanent redirect is fine. Chains waste crawling and temporary redirects send mixed signals.
robots.txt
I find the group that applies to Googlebot and the most specific rule that matches the path, the way Google documents it, and show you that rule.
Meta robots and X-Robots-Tag
A noindex in either removes the page from results. The header version is easy to miss because it isn't in the HTML.
Canonical
Shows whether the page points to itself, to another URL, or nowhere. If it points elsewhere, that other URL is usually the one Google indexes.
Sitemap, title and description
Whether the URL is in the sitemaps listed in robots.txt (or /sitemap.xml), plus the title and meta description Google may use in results.
How to use it
Paste the exact URL
Use the address you want indexed, including https and the right version of www. The checker follows redirects and tells you where it ended up.
Read the verdict first
Green means nothing technical is blocking Google. Amber means indexable but with things worth fixing. Red means at least one hard block.
Fix red, then amber
Start with status, noindex and robots.txt. Those stop indexing outright. Canonical and sitemap issues slow it down or send Google to the wrong URL.
Confirm in Search Console
After a fix, run URL Inspection on the page and request indexing. Google decides when to come back, so give it time.
Reading the results: the situations I see most
Everything green, still not indexed
This is the most common case, and it isn't a technical problem. Google can index the page but has chosen not to yet. I look at whether the page is a near-copy of another, whether it has enough original content, and how many internal links point to it. A page linked only from the sitemap looks unimportant. My core update recovery guide covers how to tell a quality problem from a technical one.
noindex left over from staging
A site goes live with the "discourage search engines" setting still on, or a staging header copied into production. The checker shows exactly where the noindex comes from, so your developer knows which setting to change.
Canonical pointing to the old domain or homepage
After a migration or a template change, every page can end up pointing its canonical at one URL. Google then treats them as duplicates of it. The detail line shows the canonical URL in full.
Redirect chains after a rebuild
Old URL to http, http to https, https to www, then to the new path. Four hops where one would do. I point every old URL straight at its final address, which is exactly what I did when this site's own URLs changed.
Worked example: diagnosing a page that dropped out
Say a service page stopped getting search traffic after a redesign. Here is the order I'd work in, using this checker for the first half:
- Check the old URL. If it returns 404, the redesign changed the address without a redirect. Add a 301 to the new page.
- Check the new URL. Look for a 200, no noindex, a self-referencing canonical, and a robots.txt rule that allows it.
- Look at the sitemap result. If the new URL isn't listed, the sitemap is probably still the old one, or it is cached.
- Move to Search Console. URL Inspection shows the version Google last saw. The Pages report shows whether many URLs are affected or only this one.
- Check internal links. Menus and old blog posts often still link to the old address, which keeps Google crawling redirects instead of pages.
If several pages changed at once, a technical SEO audit is quicker than checking them one by one.
Mistakes that keep pages out of Google
- Blocking a page in robots.txt to remove it from Google. Google then can't see the noindex you added.
- Leaving a noindex header on the live site after launch.
- Canonical tags that point every page at the homepage.
- Changing URLs without 301 redirects, which is the fastest way I know to lose rankings.
- Sitemaps full of redirected, noindexed or 404 URLs, so Google stops trusting them.
- Important pages with no internal links, reachable only through the sitemap.
My tips from fixing indexing problems
Check headers, not just source
When a page "looks fine" in view-source but won't index, the X-Robots-Tag header is the first thing I check.
One URL per page
Pick www or non-www, https, and trailing slash or not. Redirect everything else to it and use the same version in canonicals, sitemaps and internal links.
Keep the sitemap clean
Only list URLs that return 200, are indexable and are the canonical version. A clean sitemap is a useful signal; a messy one gets ignored.
Be patient after the fix
Google re-crawls at its own pace. I track progress in Search Console rather than promise a date, and I don't keep re-submitting the same URL.
Once a page is indexable, run the free SEO audit for the on-page side (headings, alt text, internal links, schema), check the site-wide crawl rules with the robots.txt and sitemap checker, and see how it could look in results with the SERP preview tool. If traffic fell around a known date, check the Google algorithm update tracker to see whether an update was rolling out.
FAQ
Indexing checker questions
Does this tell me if my page is indexed?
No, and no outside tool can tell you that reliably. It tells you whether Google is able and allowed to index the page. To see whether Google actually has, use the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console for that URL.
How do I check if a page is noindex?
Paste the URL above. The checker reads the meta robots and googlebot tags in the HTML and the X-Robots-Tag HTTP header, which is where a noindex often hides because you can’t see it in the page source.
Why is my page not indexed by Google?
If this checker finds nothing blocking it, the reason is usually quality or priority, not a technical block. Google may see the page as a duplicate of another, as thin, or as not important enough yet. Search Console labels these "Crawled – currently not indexed" or "Discovered – currently not indexed".
If robots.txt blocks a page, can it still be indexed?
Yes. A blocked URL can still appear in results, usually without a description, if other pages link to it. robots.txt controls crawling, not indexing. To keep a page out of the index, allow crawling and use noindex.
Is it safe to check any URL?
The checker only fetches public web addresses on standard ports. It refuses private and local network addresses, stops after a few seconds, follows at most six redirects, and limits how many checks one person can run per minute.
Why does the result differ from what I see in my browser?
Some sites show different content to bots, block data-centre IP addresses, or need JavaScript to add tags like the canonical. The checker reads the HTML the server returns, without running JavaScript. If a tag only appears after JavaScript runs, Google may still see it, but later and less reliably.
More free tools
Pages still not getting indexed?
Send me the URLs. I'll look at them in Search Console terms and tell you what's actually holding them back, for free.