Google Search Console crawl and indexing errors: what each message means
Each page below takes one message from Search Console's Page indexing report, says in two sentences what it means and what to do, and then shows how to check it with Google's tools and ours. Not every message needs a fix: Google itself says "Not indexed is not necessarily bad."
Quotes and rules from Google's Page indexing report help and Google Search Central, read 2026-10-30.
Not indexed
- URL blocked by robots.txtIn the report: Blocked by robots.txtA Disallow rule in your robots.txt stops Googlebot from crawling this URL. If the page should be in Google, remove or narrow that rule and validate the fix.
- Crawled - currently not indexedGoogle fetched the page but chose not to index it for now. No error is reported: check the page's text, duplicates and links, improve it, and give Google time.
- Discovered - currently not indexedGoogle knows the URL but has not crawled it yet, typically because more crawling might overload your site. Check server errors, speed, links and sitemap.
- URL marked ‘noindex’In the report: Excluded by ‘noindex’ tagGoogle saw a noindex rule, in a robots meta tag or an X-Robots-Tag header, and left the page out. Remove the rule if the page should be in Google.
- Server error (5xx)Your server answered Googlebot with a 500-level status, so the page was not indexed. Find the failing requests in your logs, fix the cause, then validate.
- Redirect errorGoogle could not follow the redirect: a chain too long, a loop, a URL too long or a bad URL in the chain. Redirect straight to the final page in one hop.
- Soft 404The page returns 200 OK but looks like an error or empty page to Google. Send a real 404 or 410 if it is gone, a 301 if it moved, or fix what failed to load.
- Blocked due to access forbidden (403)Your server answered Googlebot with 403 Forbidden. Googlebot never sends credentials, so let it in: check firewall, bot protection and login rules for the URL.
- Page with redirectThe URL redirects to another page, so Google does not index it and may index the target. Usually fine: update internal links and the sitemap to the final URL.
Indexed, with a warning
Tools for these checks
- AI crawler checker: robots.txt decision per bot for one URL, HTTP status, canonical, noindex and the HTML without JavaScript.
- robots.txt tester and validator: syntax errors line by line and which bots the rules block.
- Sitemap robots.txt check: every sitemap URL against your rules.
- Verify a crawler IP: is that Googlebot in your log real?
For the wider picture, read why Google isn't crawling your site.