How To Fix the “Crawled — Currently Not Indexed” Error in Google Search Console

Error messages aren’t fun to run into. But if you’re on this page, it means you’ve had the misfortune of seeing the “Crawled — currently not indexed” error message in Google Search Console (GSC). 

You’re probably wondering what the issue is or what you’ve done wrong to prevent your page from being indexed by Google. Don’t worry, though — there are ways to fix it.

On this page, we’ll start by briefly examining why you might be seeing this error message. Then we’ll cover five tips on how to fix the “Crawled — currently not indexed” error in Google Search Console. 

Keep reading to find out more, and be sure to subscribe to Revenue Weekly (our email newsletter) for more tips on using GSC and optimizing your website!

What causes the GSC “Crawled — currently not indexed” error?

This error message occurs when Google crawls a page but doesn’t index it — that is, it sees the page, but doesn’t store the information on it, thereby preventing it from ranking. You want your pages to rank, so that means you want them to be indexed. That’s why this error is a problem.

There are numerous reasons why Google might not index a page, but typically, it’s not because Google messed up — it’s because Google’s algorithms purposefully excluded the page from indexing. That usually reflects some problem with the page. The good news is, that means it’s probably something you can fix.

Issues with a page that might cause this error include:

How to fix the “Crawled — currently not indexed” error in Google Search Console

Now that we’ve established some of the likely reasons behind the GSC “Crawled — currently not indexed” error, let’s talk about how to deal with it. Some of the best tips for fixing the issue include the following:

1. Analyze the specific pages in the report
2. Eradicate duplicate content
3. Reoptimize your internal linking hierarchy
4. Conduct an overall content audit
5. Submit your site for reindexing

Keep reading for a full overview of how to fix the “Crawled — currently not indexed” error in Google Search Console.

1. Analyze the specific pages in the report

When you first noticed the error, it may only have been for a specific page. But if the error exists for one page, it’s possible that it exists for other pages on your site. And if you’re trying to fix the issue, you should fix it for all applicable pages.

To see all the pages experiencing the error, click on the “Pages” tab in the sidebar, and then go to the section titled “Why pages aren’t indexed.” There, you should find the full list of affected pages.

Next, go through and manually review all the pages on the list to look for trends. Check to see if a particular type of page is consistently affected. If so, that gives you some insights into what the problem might be. 

You can also see if the problem started at a particular time, which might indicate that it’s due to a specific update you made to your site.

2. Eradicate duplicate content

One of the best ways to fix the “Crawled — currently not indexed” error in GSC is to get rid of any duplicate content on your site. As we mentioned earlier, duplicate content is one of the most common causes of this error.

If you find duplicate content on your site, the simplest approach is to delete it. But sometimes, it might be there for a good reason, and you have to fix it differently.

For example, let’s say you have multiple versions of your site in different languages. In that case, you should make sure that it’s actually showing up in a different language for each version. If the Italian version of your site is actually in English, it’s naturally going to register as duplicate content. Go in and change it to the correct language to fix the issue.

3. Reoptimize your internal linking hierarchy

When Google crawls pages, it typically finds them by following links from other pages. If you have a page on your site that no other page leads to — that is, it’s just sort of floating by itself, disconnected from the rest of your site — Google may not find it. Even if it ends up crawling it, it may not index it.

There’s a simple fix to this issue — just add some internal links on your site that lead to the page. But if this is happening for a lot of pages, you probably need to take a broader approach and reassess your overall internal linking hierarchy. Make sure all your pages are getting some “link love” on your site, and that your internal links follow a structure that makes sense.

4. Conduct an overall content audit

Another way to fix the “Crawled — currently not indexed” error in GSC is to simply fix your content itself. That is, rather than looking for technical issues with links or duplicate content, consider the possibility that Google simply finds your content to be unhelpful.

The best way to reveal this is to conduct a full audit of the content that’s been hit with the error. Evaluate the type of information you include on each page and how that information aligns with the search intent for the page’s target keyword(s). If you find issues there, you’ll want to revise or rewrite the content in question.

5. Submit your site for reindexing

Once you’ve checked all the other boxes on this list, the final step is to simply submit your site to be reindexed. You can do that by entering each of the affected URLs into the URL inspection tool in Google Search Console. This will allow Google to reconsider your pages in the wake of any changes you’ve made.

Even if you didn’t make any major changes to a page, it’s still possible that something has changed since the last time it was crawled, so it’s worth resubmitting it to see what happens.

WebFX can help you audit and reoptimize your website

Knowing how to fix the “Crawled — currently not indexed” error should help you get your site pages indexed by Google. But getting your pages indexed isn’t useful unless you can also get them to rank in relevant search results. For that, you need to master search engine optimization (SEO).

If you want help optimizing the SEO across your website, or even just auditing your existing SEO strategy, WebFX can help. When you partner with us, you’ll get access to over 28 years of experience with SEO that you can use to help your site earn more traffic and drive more revenue.

Interested in partnering with us for our SEO services? Just give us a call at 888-601-5359 or contact us online today!