What does “indexed” mean?
When a page is indexed, it means Google has added it to its database and can show it in search results.
However, not every page on your website needs to be indexed — and in many cases, it’s better if certain pages aren’t.
Google only needs to index the important pages of your site, such as your articles, tag pages, and main category pages.
When “Not Indexed” is completely normal
If you open your Google Search Console → Pages → Indexing report, you’ll see different reasons why some URLs are not indexed.
Below are the most common cases — and why most of them are not problems at all.
1. Alternate page with proper canonical tag
These pages have a canonical version (the main page Google should index).
Example: URLs with query parameters like
?comment=, ?AMB=, or ?CMB=.
These are duplicate versions of your articles, usually created when visitors add comments or other parameters.
✅ This is good — only the main article URL should be indexed.
2. Redirected pages
When a page redirects to another URL, Google only indexes the destination page.
✅ Normal behavior. No action needed.
3. 404 Not Found
A 404 means the page no longer exists. Often these are:
Old URLs from your previous CMS
Deleted articles
✅ This is fine — you don’t want outdated or deleted pages indexed.
🚨 Only check if a current article shows a 404 — that would need to be fixed.
4. Excluded by ‘noindex’ tag
These are pages that have been intentionally marked with noindex — for example:
Internal search result pages
Admin or user pages
✅ Normal — these pages should not appear in Google Search.
5. Duplicate without user-selected canonical
Google detected duplicate content and chose one version to index.
✅ Normal, as long as your main pages are being indexed.
6. Crawled – currently not indexed
This is the most common type that confuses publishers.
It means Google has seen the page but decided not yet to add it to search results.
Possible reasons include:
The content is too short or has little unique text.
It’s very similar to other pages on your site.
It embeds only a video without enough surrounding context.
Google doesn’t consider it valuable enough at this time.
💡 Tip: Add more written context, especially for short or video-only articles. Include a short intro, description, or summary to help Google understand the topic and importance of the page.
7. Server errors (5xx)
If you see server errors listed, these should be checked.
Sometimes they come from staging URLs (for example: staging.domain.com) that accidentally got indexed.
✅ These can be safely excluded by adding a noindex tag to the staging environment.
Key takeaway
Not every “Not Indexed” message is a problem.
In fact, in most cases, it’s a good sign that Google is ignoring unnecessary URLs (such as duplicates, searches, or comment pages).
Focus only on:
Making sure important pages (articles, tag pages, category pages) are indexed.
Avoiding server errors or unexpected 404s on active articles.
Adding more context to short or video-only pages.
When to contact Newsifier Support
You can reach out to us if:
Important articles or tag pages are missing from Google’s index for a long time.
You notice server errors or staging URLs showing up in Search Console.
You’re unsure whether certain excluded pages are correctly handled.
We’ll review your setup and ensure everything is technically correct.