What does the Page indexing report show?

It shows the indexing status of all URLs Google knows about in your Search Console property. A chart counts indexed and not-indexed pages over time, and a table named "Why pages aren't indexed" lists each reason with the number of affected pages.

Is the Index Coverage report the same as the Page indexing report?

Both names refer to Search Console's report on index status. Google's help page is titled "Page indexing report", and the training video embedded on that page is still titled "Index coverage status in Search Console".

Is it bad if pages are listed as "Not indexed"?

Not necessarily. Google states that pages can be not indexed for a legitimate reason, such as a robots.txt rule, a noindex tag or a duplicate URL, and that you should not expect every URL on a site to be indexed. It is a problem when an important canonical page is in the list.

How long does "Validate fix" take in the Page indexing report?

Google says validation typically takes up to about two weeks and can take much longer in some cases. Validation stops as soon as Google finds a single remaining instance of the issue, so fix every affected URL before you start it.

Do small sites need the Page indexing report?

Google says that a site with fewer than 500 pages probably does not need the report, and suggests a site: search to see whether key pages are indexed. The report becomes useful when those searches come back empty or the site is large.

Glossary · Search Console metrics & reports

What Is the Page Indexing Report in Google Search Console?

What the Page indexing report (still widely called Index Coverage) counts, what each not-indexed reason means, which server and client errors need a fix, and where the report's numbers stop.

Written by Sebastian Kinzlinger, Founder, Keylogs

Published Nov 14, 2026

Definition

The Page indexing report is a Google Search Console report that shows the indexing status of every URL Google knows about in a property. It counts indexed and not-indexed pages over time and groups the not-indexed ones by reason, such as a server error, a redirect, a noindex rule or a duplicate, with example URLs for each.

Key takeaways

The report covers every URL Google knows about in the property and splits them into "Indexed" and "Not indexed".
"Not indexed" is not an error label: Google lists pages there for legitimate reasons too, such as a robots.txt block or a duplicate.
Each reason opens a details page with a chart and an example list limited to 1,000 URLs, which is not guaranteed to be complete.
Google says a site with fewer than 500 pages probably does not need the report.
The report cannot be searched or filtered by URL; the status of one page is read in the URL Inspection tool.

On this page

How Search Console reports page indexing

The Page indexing report shows the Google indexing status of all URLs that Google knows about in your property. ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report} Many guides still call it the Index Coverage report, and the training video Google embeds on the report's help page is still titled "Index coverage status in Search Console". ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report}

The summary page has three parts. ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report}

Part	What it shows
Chart	A graph and count of indexed and not-indexed pages over time.
"Why pages aren't indexed" table	Each reason that kept URLs out of the index. A row opens a details page with affected URLs.
"Improve page experience" table	Issues that did not prevent indexing but that Google recommends fixing.

A dropdown above the chart filters the counts by sitemap: "All known pages" (the default), "All submitted pages", "Unsubmitted pages only", or one specific sitemap. ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report} A URL counts as submitted even if Google also discovered it another way. ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report} Being in a sitemap helps discovery, but it does not guarantee that a URL is crawled and indexed. ^{[5]Google Search Central. Learn about sitemaps}

Every URL falls into one of two statuses: "Indexed", or "Not indexed", which covers both indexing errors and legitimate reasons. ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report} This two-group layout follows a 2022 change in which Google simplified how Search Console classifies pages, because users were unsure whether a "warning" page could appear on Google; Google called it a reporting change only. ^{[4]Google Search Central Blog. Simplifying Search Console reports with an updated item classification}

The reasons a page is not indexed

Google lists 15 reasons under "Not indexed" and two warnings for pages that are indexed with a problem. ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report}

Reason	Short meaning
Server error (5xx)	The server returned a 500-level error.
Redirect error	A redirect chain that is too long, loops or contains a bad URL.
URL blocked by robots.txt	A robots.txt rule blocked the crawl.
URL marked 'noindex'	Google found a noindex directive.
Soft 404	A "not found" page that does not return a 404 code.
Blocked due to unauthorized request (401)	The page asked Googlebot for authorization.
Not found (404)	The URL returned 404 and was not submitted in a sitemap.
Blocked due to access forbidden (403)	The server refused access.
URL blocked due to other 4xx issue	Another 4xx error.
Crawled - currently not indexed	Crawled, but Google did not index it.
Discovered - currently not indexed	Found, but not crawled yet.
Alternate page with proper canonical tag	An alternate that points to an indexed canonical.
Duplicate without user-selected canonical	A duplicate with no canonical declared.
Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user	Google preferred another URL to the declared one.
Page with redirect	A non-canonical URL that redirects elsewhere.
Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt (warning)	Indexed without being crawled.
Page indexed without content (warning)	Indexed, but Google could not read the content.

Three of the duplicate statuses have their own pages: Duplicate without user-selected canonical, Alternate page with proper canonical tag, and the different canonical post for a declared canonical Google overrode.

Server and client errors: Server error (5xx), Not found (404), Blocked due to access forbidden (403), Blocked due to unauthorized request (401), Redirect error

These five reasons mean Google asked for the page and did not get one.

Reason	What Google reports	What to do
Server error (5xx)	Googlebot could not access the URL, the request timed out, or the site was busy.	Check server load, availability, and firewall or DNS settings that may block Googlebot.
Not found (404)	The page returned 404, and Google found the URL without a sitemap or explicit request.	Fix only 404s you link to yourself or list in a sitemap. Redirect moved pages with a 301.
Blocked due to access forbidden (403)	Googlebot never provides credentials, so the server is returning this error incorrectly.	Admit non-signed-in users, or allow verified Googlebot requests.
Blocked due to unauthorized request (401)	The page was blocked by a request for authorization.	Remove the authorization requirement, or allow verified Googlebot.
Redirect error	A chain that was too long, a loop, a URL over the maximum length, or a bad or empty URL in the chain.	Shorten the chain to a single hop to a working URL.

The table follows Google's descriptions. ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report} The stakes differ by type. Indexed URLs that start returning a 4xx code are removed from the index, while URLs returning 5xx stay indexed at first and are dropped if the error persists. ^{[2]Google Search Central. How HTTP status codes affect Google's crawlers} Server errors also make Google slow its crawling of the site; 4xx codes other than 429 have no effect on crawl rate. ^{[2]Google Search Central. How HTTP status codes affect Google's crawlers} Googlebot generally follows up to 10 redirect hops. ^{[2]Google Search Central. How HTTP status codes affect Google's crawlers}

Server errors can be transient, so a live test in the URL Inspection tool may pass on a URL the report still flags. ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report}

Is a "Not indexed" count a problem?

Usually not by itself. Google's stated goal is to get the canonical version of every important page indexed, and it says you should not expect 100% coverage. ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report} A page marked duplicate or alternate is usually a good thing, because it means Google found the canonical and indexed it. ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report}

Three patterns do deserve attention. ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report}

Indexed pages drop with no matching error. You may be blocking existing pages through robots.txt, noindex or a login.
More not-indexed than indexed pages. Common causes are a robots.txt rule that blocks a large section, or many parameter duplicates.
An error spikes. A template change or a sitemap that lists blocked URLs is the usual cause.

Google sorts the reasons table by what it considers most important, and says to prioritize issues where the Source column says "Website" and validation is "failed" or "not started". ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report} A drop in indexed pages can also show up as lost clicks in the Performance report; the traffic drop checklist covers that path.

Example: reading the report for a 2,000-URL site

The table below is constructed to illustrate the pattern. A shop has 2,000 known URLs: 1,240 indexed and 760 not indexed.

Reason	Pages	Reading
Page with redirect	310	Old URLs that redirect. Intended.
Alternate page with proper canonical tag	180	Variants pointing at an indexed canonical. Intended.
Not found (404)	120	Check which ones are still linked internally.
Crawled - currently not indexed	90	Review only the pages that matter.
Server error (5xx)	45	Fix first.
Blocked due to access forbidden (403)	15	Fix: the server is refusing Googlebot.

Of the 760, 490 are working as intended and 60 are real errors. The 38% not-indexed share says nothing; the 60 URLs do, if they include pages that should earn impressions.

How to check it

Open the Page indexing report and leave the filter on "All known pages".
Compare the indexed count with the number of canonical pages you expect.
Read "Why pages aren't indexed" from the top and open any reason you did not intend.
On the details page, inspect an example URL. The check if a page is indexed guide covers single URLs.
Fix every instance, then click "Validate fix". Validation typically takes up to about two weeks. ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report}
For new or changed pages, see how to request indexing and how to submit a sitemap.

The thing people get wrong

A large "Not indexed" number is read as a list of errors to clear. Google's wording is the opposite: these pages have not been indexed, "but not necessarily because of an error", and non-indexed URLs can be fine. ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report} The number that matters is how many important canonical pages are missing from "Indexed".

The mirror mistake is treating "Indexed" as "ranking". Google says an indexed page is not guaranteed to show up in search results. ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report} An indexed page with a weak average position or CTR is a Performance report question, and when two indexed pages split one query it is keyword cannibalization, which a content merge fixes, not an indexing request.

Page indexing report vs URL Inspection tool

	Page indexing report	URL Inspection tool
Scope	All known URLs, grouped by reason	One URL in the property
Find a specific URL	Not possible: no search or URL filter	Paste the URL
Data	Counts over time, up to 1,000 examples per reason	Google's indexed version of the page
Live test	No	Yes, but a valid result does not mean the page will be indexed

Sources for the table: report ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report} and tool ^{[3]Google Search Console Help. URL Inspection tool}.

Where the report can mislead

The example list on a details page is limited to 1,000 rows and is not guaranteed to show every affected URL, even when fewer than 1,000 are affected. ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report} A URL you already fixed stays listed until Google crawls it again, and a page that URL Inspection shows as indexed can be missing from the report because it was indexed recently. ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report} "Not found (404)" covers only URLs that returned a 404 in the past month. ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report} Totals will not exactly match your own count of URLs, and an issue leaves the table only 90 days after its last instance is gone. ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report}

For a small site, Google's own advice is to skip the report: under 500 pages, a site: search for key pages is the suggested check. ^{[1]Google Search Console Help. Page indexing report}

Frequently asked questions

What does the Page indexing report show?: It shows the indexing status of all URLs Google knows about in your Search Console property. A chart counts indexed and not-indexed pages over time, and a table named "Why pages aren't indexed" lists each reason with the number of affected pages.
Is the Index Coverage report the same as the Page indexing report?: Both names refer to Search Console's report on index status. Google's help page is titled "Page indexing report", and the training video embedded on that page is still titled "Index coverage status in Search Console".
Is it bad if pages are listed as "Not indexed"?: Not necessarily. Google states that pages can be not indexed for a legitimate reason, such as a robots.txt rule, a noindex tag or a duplicate URL, and that you should not expect every URL on a site to be indexed. It is a problem when an important canonical page is in the list.
How long does "Validate fix" take in the Page indexing report?: Google says validation typically takes up to about two weeks and can take much longer in some cases. Validation stops as soon as Google finds a single remaining instance of the issue, so fix every affected URL before you start it.
Do small sites need the Page indexing report?: Google says that a site with fewer than 500 pages probably does not need the report, and suggests a site: search to see whether key pages are indexed. The report becomes useful when those searches come back empty or the site is large.

The bottom line

The Page indexing report is Search Console's count of which known URLs are in Google's index and Google's reason for each one that is not. The decision it supports is which not-indexed reasons are intended and which are hiding a page you need in Search. Check that every important canonical page is indexed, fix server and access errors first, and leave duplicates, redirects and deliberate blocks alone. For one URL, use the URL Inspection tool.

Article sources

Google Search Console Help. “Page indexing report”. Accessed Nov 13, 2026.
Google Search Central. “How HTTP status codes affect Google's crawlers”. Accessed Nov 13, 2026.
Google Search Console Help. “URL Inspection tool”. Accessed Nov 13, 2026.
Google Search Central Blog. “Simplifying Search Console reports with an updated item classification”. Accessed Nov 13, 2026.
Google Search Central. “Learn about sitemaps”. Accessed Nov 13, 2026.

Keylogs requires writers to use primary sources — Google's own documentation and original Search Console data. Learn more about our editorial standards.

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