--- title: "Indexing: Why Your New Page Is Not on Google Yet" description: "Indexing: why a new page is missing from Google, and the checks to run in Search Console, your sitemap, robots.txt and internal links before assuming worse." canonical: "https://socialinfluencebuilder.com/en/blog/page-not-indexed-google-checklist/" lastmod: "2018-04-13T15:23:00+00:00" lang: "en-CA" format: "markdown" --- HTML version: # Indexing: Why Your New Page Is Not on Google Yet > **Archive note.** This article describes the situation as it stood when it was published. The rules, tools and features it mentions may have changed since. Check the current information with the official source before acting. Indexing: a new page reaches Google only after it is discovered, crawled and then processed, and any one of those three steps can be slow or blocked, so publishing alone does not put the page in search results. I hear about this constantly from small business owners across Greater MontrĂ©al. You publish a page, search for it a few hours later, and it is nowhere. Often Google has simply not worked through its steps for that page yet, and sometimes a setting on the page is holding it back. Either way, there are a handful of ordinary reasons, and you can check each stage in order before you assume something bigger is wrong. ## Indexing: why a new page is not on Google yet Indexing is the last of three steps, and a page can stall at any of them. First Google has to discover the page, usually by following a link or reading your sitemap. Then Googlebot crawls it, meaning it downloads the content. Only after that does Google process the page and decide whether to add it to its index, the step people call [indexing](/en/glossary/#indexation). Those automated crawlers work on their own schedule. They do not visit every site with the same frequency, and a newer site, or one with few links pointing to it, gets crawled less often. Until Google has crawled and processed your page, it cannot appear for anyone. ## Crawling versus indexing: two separate steps Crawling and indexing are two separate events, and treating them as one is where most people misread the problem. Crawling is Googlebot arriving and downloading the page. Indexing is Google deciding to store it and show it in results. A page can be crawled and never indexed. Google might crawl it now and add it later, or crawl it and choose to leave it out. Because each step can fail on its own, the first thing to work out is which of the two has happened to your page: was it crawled, and if it was, did Google keep it? The answer changes what you do next. ## Search Console Index Coverage report: reading a page's status The Index Coverage report tells you where Google got stuck, which is why it is the first place I look. This report sits in the new version of Search Console, which is still in beta. It sorts the pages Google knows about on your site into groups: pages that are indexed and valid, pages with warnings, pages that returned errors, and pages Google has deliberately left out. Under the excluded group it lists reasons, and two of them matter here. One covers pages Google has crawled but chosen not to index for now. Another covers pages Google has found but not yet crawled. The report shows example URLs under each reason, so you can look for your new page and see which situation it is in. That tells you whether you are waiting on a crawl or waiting on an indexing decision, and those need different responses. ## Sitemap submission and Fetch as Google: asking for a crawl Submitting a sitemap and using Fetch as Google are the two ways to invite Google to your page instead of waiting for it to arrive on its own. A sitemap is a list of the URLs you want crawled, and you submit it once in Search Console so Google keeps checking it. Confirm the submission went through and that your new URL is in the file, because a page left out of the sitemap loses one of its clearest paths to discovery. For a single new page, Fetch as Google, which still sits in the classic version of Search Console, fetches the page as Googlebot sees it and lets you ask for it to be added to the index. Do both when a page has been sitting unindexed: list it in the sitemap and request the crawl directly. ### Robots.txt and noindex tags that quietly block a page Robots.txt disallow rules and noindex meta tags can hold a page back with no warning at all, and they override every other signal you send. They work differently, and the difference matters. A disallow rule in robots.txt stops Googlebot from crawling the page, so Google never even reads the content, and it never sees a noindex tag sitting inside a page it is not allowed to fetch. A noindex tag, on a page Google is allowed to crawl, lets Google read the page and then tells it not to keep it. Both are easy to leave in by accident during development, or through a plugin or CMS setting. Check three things: open yourdomain.com/robots.txt and confirm no disallow rule covers the page or its folder; view the page source and look for a noindex meta tag; and check whether WordPress or another CMS is applying noindex on its own. Clear whichever one you find, then request the page again. ## Internal links: why an orphan page waits longer Internal links are how Googlebot finds most pages, so a page with nothing linking to it, an orphan, waits far longer to be crawled than one reached from your menu. Googlebot travels from link to link. If no page on your site points to your new page, the only way Google learns it exists is the sitemap, and discovery slows to a crawl. Reviewing internal links is part of the groundwork an [SEO audit](/en/services/seo-audit/) covers, and it is usually the first thing I check when a page will not index. Make sure the new page is linked from somewhere sensible: a menu, a related page, a footer. ### French pages missing from the menu of a bilingual site French pages on a bilingual site are the orphans I see most often, left out of the menu and the sitemap so nothing on the site points to them. The English version of a new service page goes into the menu and gets crawled; its French twin is forgotten, ends up with no internal links, and waits far longer to be found. A few checks fix it. Add the French page to the French menu so it has a real path in. Cross-link the English and French versions with hreflang tags. Include both language versions in the sitemap you submit. While you are there, check that accented characters in the French URL are written the same way in the sitemap as they are on the live page, because a mismatch leaves the sitemap pointing at a URL that does not exist. ## Unindexed-page checklist before assuming a bigger problem Run these checks on an unindexed page before you assume something is seriously broken. Search Google for the exact URL with the site: operator; if it shows up, the page is already indexed. Look in the page source for a noindex tag, which is easy to miss after a template change. Confirm the sitemap submission went through and that the new URL is listed in it. Verify the page is not blocked by a disallow rule in your robots.txt file. If all four are clean, use Fetch as Google to request a fresh crawl, then give Google time to work through it. Work through this list before you reach for a deeper technical audit. Further reading: for a similar project, see [Filet Gourmet](/en/filet-gourmet/). ## Go further - **Service:** [SEO Audit for Montreal Businesses, Know Exactly What’s Holding You Back](https://socialinfluencebuilder.com/en/services/seo-audit/) - **Case study:** [Filet Gourmet](https://socialinfluencebuilder.com/en/filet-gourmet/) - **Glossary:** [Digital marketing glossary: Indexing](https://socialinfluencebuilder.com/en/glossary/#indexation)