The SEO Lifecycle
Every page goes through a three-step journey to appear in search results. The "Crawled - Not Indexed" error means the process is getting stuck at step two.
1. Crawling
Googlebot discovers and reads your page's content.
2. Indexing
Google analyzes the crawled content and decides if it's worthy of being stored in its massive database.
3. Ranking
If indexed, the page is eligible to appear in search results.
Decoding GSC Statuses
Not all "excluded" statuses are the same. Understanding the difference is the first step to a correct diagnosis. This chart shows where the problem lies for each status.
The Root Causes
The reasons for non-indexing fall into three main categories. Content quality is by far the most common culprit.
Content Issues
- ● Thin or low-quality information.
- ● Duplicate content or keyword cannibalization.
- ● Mismatch with user search intent.
Technical & Architectural
- ● Accidental `noindex` tags.
- ● Poor internal linking (orphan pages).
- ● JavaScript rendering problems.
Site-Level Authority
- ● Low topical authority on the subject.
- ● Failed a user engagement test (e.g., low CTR).
- ● Crawl budget limitations on large sites.
Your 5-Step Diagnostic Workflow
Follow this systematic process to efficiently find and fix the problem.
Inspect URL in GSC
Paste the affected URL into the Google Search Console inspection tool. This is your primary source of truth.
Run a Live Test
Click "Test Live URL" to see how Google renders the page now. Check for `noindex` tags in the rendered HTML.
Audit Content & Duplicates
Manually review the page. Is it thin, unhelpful, or a copy of another page? Check the "Google-selected canonical" in GSC.
Check Internal Links
Is the page an orphan? Use a `site:yourdomain.com` search to find relevant pages on your site to link from.
Fix & Re-Request Indexing
After implementing a fix, go back to the URL Inspection Tool and click "Request Indexing" to put it back in the queue.