Crawled and Discovered, currently not indexed: what to do
Crawled, currently not indexed means Google fetched the page and left it out for now. Discovered, currently not indexed means Google knows the URL but hasn't fetched it yet. Neither is automatically an error, so start with whether the page matters.
Google doesn't index every page it finds, and it says so plainly. Both statuses can be normal, particularly on a new site, or on filtered, archive and low-value URLs. They only need work when pages you care about stay stuck.
What each status means
| Crawled, currently not indexed | Discovered, currently not indexed | |
|---|---|---|
| Has Google fetched it? | Yes | Not yet, so the last crawl date is empty |
| What Google says | It crawled the page and hasn't indexed it | It usually means a crawl was planned, then rescheduled because it might overload the site |
| Where to look first | The page itself, then how much the site values it | Internal links, the sitemap and crawl capacity |
Based on Google's Page indexing report help.
When to worry
- Key pages are listed. Products, categories or articles you want to rank have sat here for weeks.
- A large share of the site is Discovered. Google treats that as a sign crawl budget may be a problem, though its crawl budget guide is aimed at larger sites, roughly 10,000 pages or more that change daily, or 1 million or more that change weekly.
- The number jumped after a release. A sudden change points to something you shipped, such as a template or robots change.
A small new site with a few pages listed usually just needs time and links. Check that those pages are in your sitemap and are linked from pages Google already knows.
How to investigate
1Inspect the URL 1 minute
Paste it into URL Inspection in Search Console. Check the last crawl date and the canonical. The report can lag, so the live status may already be different.
2Rule out page-level blockers 5 minutes
These are the causes you can confirm on the page:
- A noindex in the HTML or the
X-Robots-Tagheader - A canonical that points to another URL
- A soft 404, such as an empty category or out-of-stock message on a 200 page
- Main content that only appears after JavaScript runs
- robots.txt rules that block files the page needs
3Look for a pattern 10 minutes
Group the listed URLs by template or folder. If one type dominates, the cause is probably the template or how those pages are linked, not the individual pages.
What to do next
- Link to it. Add internal links from relevant pages that are already indexed.
- List it in your sitemap. Google says sitemaps help it discover URLs, especially on a new site or after a move.
- Make it worth indexing. If the page repeats others or adds little, improve it, merge it or remove it.
- Request indexing for a few URLs. Use URL Inspection for important pages. Asking repeatedly won't speed things up, and Google doesn't guarantee a result.
- Check the server. For Discovered pages at scale, look for slow responses and server errors, as well as low-value URLs using up crawl capacity.
If every page-level check passes and the page is still left out, the likely reasons are outside the page, such as how much value Google sees in it or how the site is linked. Neither SEOSnip nor a crawler can tell you Google's reasoning.
Stuck pages in the report?
Rule out page problems in one click
SEOSnip doesn't read your indexing report or explain why Google left a page out. It does check the causes you can see on the page:
- Noindex in the meta tag or
X-Robots-Tagheader - A canonical that points elsewhere
- Soft 404 wording and thin content
- Differences between the server HTML and the rendered page
- robots.txt rules that block the page or its files
If it finds something, you can turn it into a ticket with the evidence attached.