4 Ways to Check if Your Web Page is Indexed by Google

Ensuring Google has indexed your web pages is a critical step in your SEO strategy.

If your pages are not part of the Google index, they won’t appear in search engine results, making them invisible to potential customers who use Google. 

Regularly checking the indexing status of pages on your website helps you:

• Ensure you remain accessible via Google searches
• Address issues that could prevent content discovery
• Monitor your site’s health and performance over time

This resource explores four straightforward methods to confirm if Google indexes your website and its pages.

Solution #1: Use the URL Inspection Tool on Google Search Console

Google Search Console is a free website management service offered by Google to track and troubleshoot a website’s visibility in search results. The URL Inspection Tool is one of Google Search Console’s features that identifies whether or not a web page is indexed by Google.

To use this, log in to your GSC account and choose your property. You can access the URL Inspection Tool via the left-hand menu or the top search bar.

Paste the URL of the page you want to track and press enter. 

If the page is on Google’s index, here’s what you will find on Google Search Console:

There are various ways to get Google to index a page, such as submitting sitemaps containing the list of URLs. You can investigate further how Google indexed your page by clicking the drop-down on the Page indexing section:

This gives valuable insights, especially the Referring page data. If Google discovered the page from an outside source, it means the page lacks internal links and is likely to be an orphaned page. 

On the other hand, unindexed pages from your website will show this:

The Page indexing section of unindexed pages explains why the page is inaccessible to users in search results.

For instance, “URL is unknown to Google” means the search engine is unaware of the page’s existence. Or, “Crawled – currently not indexed” means Google has crawled the page and its content but has chosen not to index it yet (or ever).

Using the URL Inspection Tool is an effective solution for auditing single, known pages on your website.

Advantages:

• Free
• Easy to use
• Best for small websites
• Gives crawling and indexing insights

Disadvantages:

• Only works on websites where you have GSC access
• Manual process
• Test one URL at a time

Solution #2: Visit the Page Indexing data on Google Search Console

The Pages tab under the Indexing section of Google Search Console is another solution if you want to check whether Google has indexed a page. 

Click the Pages tab from GSC’s lefthand side menu:

This will show the distribution of your website’s Indexed and Not indexed URLs of known pages. The results below show that IndexCheckr has 69 unindexed and 34 indexed pages.

You may filter the results according to how Google indexed the pages: 

• Known pages (every URL on your website discovered by Google)
• Submitted pages (URLs included in the sitemap)
• Unsubmitted pages (URLs crawled but not included in the sitemap)

Scrolling down, you will find the indexing issues behind unindexed pages:

The Source column tells whether the indexing status is caused by the user or Google. Meanwhile, the Pages column reveals how many pages have been affected by the corresponding reason.

Click any of the rows to find the specific URLs of the affected pages. For instance, IndexCheckr has 23 pages with duplicate content without user-selected canonical, which includes the following:

Selecting any links shown will allow you to inspect them using the URL inspection tool. For example, let’s click the topmost URL:

Using the Pages tab on GSC is a broader approach to discovering unindexed pages, including the reason why they were excluded from Google’s index.

Advantages:

• Free
• Easy to use
• A broader approach to discovering unindexed pages
• Shows reason why pages are not indexed

Disadvantages:

• Only works on websites where you have GSC access
• Manual process

Solution #3: Try Google search operators

Google search operators are special prompts or commands that allow users to filter search results. 

Using search operators helps find a specific page or a set of pages instead of going through hundreds of unrelated results.

The “site:” command is the most effective search operator for determining whether a page is on Google search. 

After writing “site:” on the Google search bar, paste the domain URL you want to analyze without space. 

For example:

Alternatively, you can also search for a specific URL using the “site:” command:

Theoretically, the “site:” directive should reveal all indexed pages on Google that are included in the chosen domain. This works as intended for our site:indexcheckr.com command. 

However, it is well known that it only shows a fraction of the actual number of a website’s indexed pages. 

Google does not guarantee that a result will appear for “site:” even if they are indexed, as shown below:

While not always reliable, site owners can use the “site:” command to check the indexing status of pages outside your website. This is effective for conducting competitor research or SEO link-building purposes. 

Advantages:

• Free
• Easy to use
• Lets you check the indexing status of external pages

Disadvantages:

• Manual process
• Results are not always accurate or reliable

Solution #4: Automate checking your indexing status using IndexCheckr

IndexCheckr lets site owners and SEO agencies automate monitoring web pages’ indexing status on Google. Eliminating the need for manual checks streamlines the process, saving time and effort while ensuring no page goes unnoticed in search results.

Here’s how it works:

Start by creating a new project. This could be a list of your native website’s pages or expected backlinks. You have the liberty.

You can track individual pages or bulk URLs submitted using a CSV file or an XML sitemap. 

After pasting the desired links, you can configure the Recheck Frequency (how often IndexCheckr tracks whether the desired page is indexed on Google). This can be set as daily, weekly, bi-weekly, or monthly. All pages will initially have the same recheck frequency, but you may edit each page’s frequency later.

All links you wish to track will be added to the IndexCheckr main dashboard for easy monitoring. You may add more pages to the project as needed.

The Status column shows whether the page is indexed. If a page is not indexed, IndexCheckr also checks the indexing status of the entire website at no extra cost.

Tracking the domain’s indexing status offers immense benefits from an SEO standpoint. 

Unindexed pages may indicate low-quality content, but a de-indexed domain could signal more critical issues, such as a manual penalty, technical errors, or a security breach. 

Having access to this information provides data-driven insights into whether you must disavow backlinks from these domains to clean your link profile and avoid penalties.

In addition to tracking indexing status, you may also monitor pages’ indexing history by clicking the ChangeLog button at the top-right corner.

The ChangeLog lets you keep tabs on pages using time-stamped logs for when the change was discovered and the previous and current status of the target URL. 

If you want Google to index a page, you may submit the link to an indexer who can help prompt Google to do so.

IndexCheckr is an essential SEO tool that tracks the indexing status and can help index links you want indexed—a perfect companion for site owners, marketing agencies, and SEO professionals.

Advantages:

• Automated process
• Easy to use and personalize 
• Partnership with trustworthy indexers
• Works on all pages across the internet
• Has an API
• Affordable pricing

Disadvantages:

• Paid

Key Takeaways

Checking the indexing status of web pages is an essential element in search engine optimization. If a page is not indexed, it cannot rank on Google or drive organic traffic regardless of its quality or relevance.

While Google Search Console is a valuable and free tool for tracking the indexing status of a few pages, using it is not sustainable in the long run. 

IndexCheckr streamlines this process, saving time and effort compared to manual checks. This tool is necessary for agencies managing multiple clients or professionals optimizing large websites.

Discover IndexCheckr’s pricing here to see how many credits work for you.