If you don’t see some of your pages on Google search, it means that there are some issues and you have to reindex pages again in Search Console.
When a page is not indexed, it won’t appear in SERP and people won’t be able to find it on Google. So, you will lose organic traffic.
And to check if a page is indexed, just paste your page URL in Google search and if it’s not there, then it needs reindexing.
But in order to reindex pages, first, you need to understand how Google Search Console works and what is page indexing.
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What Is Page Indexing?
Page indexing is the process when you allow Google to crawl your website, save all the pages in order for them to appear in search results. So, when a person searches for something in Google, your website will appear in SERP.
And for this, you need to submit your website’s sitemap, with all the pages you want to be indexed, to Google via Search Console. After that, Google will crawl your pages and indexes them.
Because Google is the most popular search engine, page indexing is crucial for organic traffic and if a page is not indexed, it won’t get organic traffic.
Sometimes there are problems with pages and they are no longer indexed by Google. So, you need to manually reindex pages and I will show you how to do it.
Why Pages Need Reindexing?
There could be several different reasons why a page may need reindexing. Most of it requires manual work. But there are three main reasons why a page may need reindexing.
Check if your website has one of these issues and solve them first. If everything is good, then you can start reindexing process.
But first, make sure your sitemap is submitted to the Search Console. If not, do it because otherwise, this will not work.
1. Sitemap Issues
The first and most common reason why a page might not be indexed by Google is the broken sitemap. And there could be a couple of reasons why the sitemap may not be working.
First, check what pages are included in the sitemap. In order to do this, just add /sitemap_index.xml after your domain and it will show the sitemap and you can see all the pages that are included in that sitemap.
Alternatively, you can see your website’s sitemap through an SEO plugin or use special tools.
Check if the sitemap is submitted to the Search Console. Your sitemap may include all the pages you want but if it’s not submitted, then Google won’t be able to index pages. So, there will be no reason to reindex pages.
To check if the sitemap is submitted correctly, go to the Search Console and in the Sitemap section, you will see all your sitemaps.
You can see when it was submitted, the date when it was last read, the status, and discovered URLs. If the status is successful, then there is no problem with the sitemap.
If the sitemap was read recently and the status is good, then everything is OK and it’s working properly.
2. Broken Pages
Another reason why Google doesn’t index pages could be the broken pages. Maybe you changed the URL or something is wrong with the link so it doesn’t work anymore.
Many times this is the reason. So you need to make sure that the page you are searching for is working. Just go to that URL and check if it displays the page you want.
Also Read: SEO Minion Tutorial
If you see the 404 error or something similar and you don’t see the page you intended to see, then something’s wrong with that page and Google is not able to find, crawl, and index it.
I will also show you another way to check if the page is live before you reindex pages.
3. Page Rating
And the third reason for non-index pages could be the page rating or page authority itself. And if that’s the case, then you need to tweak and make that page more awesome.
It means that for Google that page is not powerful and doesn’t index it. And page power comes from page content quality, internal or external links, etc.
In order to make the page powerful, check the quality of the content. Try to make content bigger, give it a good structure, add more external and internal links, etc.
The page must have some quality and weight to be powerful. The higher a page authority is, it will rank higher and gain more traffic.
You can check the page authority by pasting the exact URL and it will show you both – domain and specific page authority.
How To Reindex Pages
Now, if everything is OK with your website according to the steps mentioned above, then it’s time to reindex the pages. This is done within Search Console and requires manual work.
Reindexing pages is a process when we tell Google to crawl again the page and index it again to appear in SERP. It may take a while before you’ll see the page in the search after reindexing.
Note: If your website has too many unindexed pages or pages won’t be indexed after reindexing, it’s better to create and submit a new sitemap.
Let’s start reindexing pages by following the steps.
Step 1: Find Unindexed Pages
The first step is to allocate the pages that need reindexing. All you need to do is to go to the Search Console > Sitemaps. At the end of the sitemap, there will be a small icon. Click on it.
It will take you to the next page where you can see all of your pages. There are Valid and Excluded boxes with numbers. That is the number of pages and Valid means indexed pages, Excluded means unindexed pages.
Choose Excluded and below you will see the message Crawled – currently not indexed or something like that and the number of pages it consists of.
From here we can see individual pages and start reindexing that pages.
Step 2: Reindex Pages
Click on unindexed pages and it will display the URLs of all unindexed pages with the last crawl date. You have to manually reindex every page.
Click on the URL you want to reindex, a new window will slide from the right side. Click on Inspect URL.
On the next page, you will see the message URL is not on Google. This means that it’s not indexed. And on the right side, there will be a Request Indexing text.
All you have to do is to click on it and in seconds it will submit the page for reindexing. You will see the success message at the end.
That’s it. Reindex pages process is done but you have to repeat this process for each and every unindexed URL.
Also, before reindexing, you can test if the page is live. When you are on the reindexing page, on the right corner there will be a Test Live URL button. Click on it.
If you get a successful message after clicking on this button, it means that the page is live and ready for reindexing.
Conclusion
If you want your website to be searchable, have organic traffic, and rank higher, it must be searchable. So, if you see that some of your pages aren’t showing on the SERP, you have to use Search Console and reindex pages. As you can see it’s a very easy thing to do.
Check the pages for all potential errors and if everything is OK, start reindexing. If this still won’t work, you can create and submit the new sitemap to the Search Console and allow Google to crawl and index your website again.
