How to check crawl and indexation issues: A complete technical SEO guide
To rank on both Google and other search engines, every website must ensure that its pages are crawlable and indexable.
professionally-designed content and hundreds of backlinks, but if Google and other search engines can’t access your pages, they will not index and rank them.
In this all-inclusive guide, you’ll discover all that you need to know about crawl and indexing issues and how they affect SEO, how to diagnose them, and what, if anything, to do about them.
Understanding Crawling and Indexing in SEO
First of all, let’s clarify what these two terms mean:
Crawl is how search bots (for example: Googlebot) find and access pages on your website.
Indexing: The next step is when the crawled pages are processed, and we try to recognize the elements on the page to help readers.
To be indexed, your page has to be crawled.
And if it’s not indexed, it can’t appear in search results, no matter how solid your content is.
Put another way, a strong crawling and indexing foundation is what constructs your home upon the technical SEO rock.
A strong crawl and index plan enables search engines to calculate your site structure properly, infer your most important pages, and set them accordingly.
Without that, the most amazing SEO content, the fastest site, the best backlinks will fail.
Why Crawl and Indexing Issues Hurt Your SEO
Search engine exposure begins with indexing.
Google will not display pages in the SERPs if it doesn’t know of them or if it believes they are not worth indexing. Here’s why that matters:
• You miss out on potential organic traffic.
• Your keywords don’t generate impressions or clicks.
• There is no SEO value to backlinks pointing to unindexed pages.
• You're losing out on internal link value.
Even a single incorrect URL being excluded can lead to further, bigger SEO problems particularly if you’re managing a large website with thousands of pages.
You might also notice:
• Lower crawl rates over time.
• Sudden traffic drops.
• GSC index coverage reports showing an increasing list of non-indexed pages.
By identifying and resolving crawl and indexing issues early, you’re protecting your work from being useless.
Indexation is just as important to optimize for as keywords, user experience or load time.
Common Crawl and Indexing Problems to Watch For
Now let’s take a closer look at what could be stopping search engines from reaching or indexing your content.
Your robots.txt is an instruction file that gives search bots a list of what parts of your site can and cannot be crawled.
Sometimes, site owners even block large chunks of the site that are important – blogs, product listings, etc.
For example:
Disallow: /blog/
This would prevent anyone from being able to access all of your blog content.
You shouldn’t be indexing pages.
If you use this for live or important content then you’re on your own, and search engines will ignore that page.
These are where the users see a “not found" page, but bots see a 200 OK status.
Search engines might consider the content to be low quality and decide not to show it.
Pro tip: Always serve a valid 404 or 410 status for missing pages.
Search engines might only index a single page when several pages duplicate the same content.
Some others may be excluded to reduce overlap.
For example, if your website contains thousands of low value pages (such as search results, archives or filters), bots can end up spending minutes (or even tens of minutes) crawling these pages, instead of your most important content.
Optimize crawl budget by:
How to Detect Crawl and Indexing Problems
Early recognition of crawl and indexing issues is important. Fortunately there are a few powerful tools to help you spot these problems.
The problems you are experiencing usually have to do with misunderstood or mis-set options.
Check your robots.txt to see if you are not blocking any part of your site.
On the pages that you would like indexed, search for noindex or nofollow tags.
Make use of the robots.txt Tester by Google and other automated tools to validate your changes.
Compare how many results Google has to the number of pages on your site.
If there’s considerable difference, chances are many of the pages are unindexed.
You can cross-verify this with your CMS page count or analytics.
How to Fix Crawl and Indexing Issues
Once you’ve spelled out the problems, you’re ready to start addressing them.
Fix Your Robots.txt File
Your homepage, blog posts, landing pages, service pages, etc., shouldn’t get a noindex tag, ever — unless there’s a good reason for it, of course.
Verify that the tag position is correct and it doesn't overlap with previous templates.
Repair Internal Linking
Create a simple, tidy site structure.
Make every page accessible within 3 clicks from the homepage.
Good pages have many internal links going to them.
You have no orphaned pages (pages without internal links).
Build topic clusters or content hubs for improved authority and crawl factor.
Use Canonical Tags for Duplicate Content.
The other benefit of the rel=canonical tag is for identifying duplicate content.
Even if you have to create duplicate content (the case of product variants, for instance), tell Google which version should be indexed with the canonical.
We redirect from page3.html to the original source at example.com/original-page using a 301 redirect on the WordPress site.
And don’t go overboard with UTM parameters on internal links, as this can lead to spammy URL paths.
Thin or spammy AI-generated pages are frequently removed from the index.
Ensure indexing is aided by publishing high-quality and original content that brings real value to users.
Supplement with firsthand insights, case studies or examples.
Naturally, words are longer if appropriate.
Employ headings, bullet points and media.
Use long-tail keywords to help rank higher.
Do not use doorways for spun content.
Submit Your Sitemap
With recent content, always keep your XML sitemap current and submit it in your Google Search Console.
This is a way to help Google find and index your new, updated or changed pages quickly.
Once you correct the page-level issues, use GSC’s URL Inspection Tool and click “Request Indexing.” This causes Google to re-crawl the page.
Proactive Tips to Maintain a Healthy Crawl and Index Profile
• Monitor Google Search Console for new crawling or indexing issues weekly.
• Keep your robots.txt and sitemap. xml files error-free.
• Employ structured data (e.g., Schema.org) to help Google understand your pages.
• Page speed: Maximize page speed for faster and more efficient crawl.
Consultation
Crawl and indexing issues are more than technical problems – they are SEO killers.
It doesn’t matter how much you blog, how many email campaigns you send, how much you share on social — everything’s for naught if search engines can’t get to your pages.
Once you’ve done the research and followed the troubleshooting in this guide on how to fix crawling and indexing issues, you operate your site to be accessible and viewable while ensuring it is on the path for search success.
A healthy crawl and index is essentially the cornerstone to increased visibility, ranking better and sustained growth in organic traffic.
