Overview
Indexing Monitoring shows which of your pages Google has in its index, which pages have problems, and what changed in the last 7 days.
Indexing Monitoring tells you which of your pages are in Google's index. A page that is not in the index cannot show in Google Search, so a drop in indexed pages can cost you traffic.
What Indexing Monitoring does
Indexing Monitoring asks Google about your pages every day. It uses the URL Inspection tool of Google Search Console. URL Inspection is the Google feature that tells you the indexing status of one page, as Google last saw it.
For each page, Google reports a status, for example "Submitted and indexed" or "Crawled - currently not indexed". Indexing Monitoring keeps every answer. It then shows the status of each page, how the totals move over time, and which pages changed status.
Indexing Monitoring shows Google's statuses in plain words, for example In Google or Crawled, not indexed. Hover a status to see Google's exact words, so that you can find the same status in Search Console.
The module has three pages in the sidebar, under Search & traffic > Indexing Monitoring:
| Page | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Overview | The totals, the trend and the changes of the last 7 days. This page. |
| Pages | Every checked page with its status, and a detail panel for each page. See Pages. |
| Settings | The Search Console properties, the pages that VitalSentinel checks more often, and how the checks are going. See Settings. |
Before you start
Indexing Monitoring needs a Google Search Console property that covers the domain. See Connect Google Search Console. When you link a property, Indexing Monitoring starts. The first inspections run right after you link the property.
How many Search Console properties you can use for all your sites depends on your plan. See Plans and limits.
Workspace owners and admins can change the settings and add pages to the daily checks. Members can see the Overview and Pages pages, but cannot open Settings. See Using the app for the roles and the parts of the screen that all module pages share.
If no property is linked
If no Search Console property is linked, Indexing Monitoring shows the heading "Link a Google Search Console property to see which pages Google has indexed". The button depends on your state:
- Sign in with Google: you did not connect a Google account yet. Sign in, then pick the property for the site.
- Pick the property: your Google account is connected. Only the property is left to pick.
How Indexing Monitoring chooses the pages to check
Google limits URL Inspection to 2,000 checks a day for each Search Console property. A large site has more pages than that, so Indexing Monitoring checks the pages in an order. It checks each group below before the next group:
- Added by you: your priority pages. VitalSentinel checks them every day, first.
- Re-checks: pages where something happened. For example, a watched page changed, Googlebot got an error, or robots.txt now blocks the page.
- Picked automatically: your important pages, for example the pages with the most Google clicks or orders. VitalSentinel checks them every week.
- Sitemap rotation: all other pages in your sitemaps. The pages with the oldest check come first.
The re-checks and the automatic pages come out of the daily limit. They are not extra checks. You can change the priority pages and the automatic pages in Settings.
Where the list of pages comes from
Indexing Monitoring takes the list of pages from your sitemaps, which Sitemap Monitoring reads. Until the list is known, the page shows one of these messages, with a See Sitemap Monitoring link:
- "We're reading your sitemaps for the first time." Wait for the first sitemap check.
- "We couldn't read your sitemaps yet; we'll try again soon." Open Sitemap Monitoring to see why.
How the counts work
Every checked page is in one of three groups. The groups add up to every page that Indexing Monitoring checked:
| Group | What it holds |
|---|---|
| In Google | Pages Google has in its index. They can appear in search results. |
| Problems | Pages Google read or tried to read, and then left out or could not reach: not indexed, errors, blocked, or duplicates. |
| Waiting or expected | Pages that are out of the index on purpose or not known yet: redirects, noindex pages, alternates of another page, and addresses Google has not seen. |
The counts include pages that left your sitemap after their check. They do not include pages on other hosts of your Search Console property, for example a docs subdomain. Sitemap Monitoring counts only the URLs that your sitemap lists now, so its numbers can be different.
During the first round of checks, the page shows a line such as "Inspecting your pages – 1,200 of 5,000 so far".
Pages by status
The top card of the Indexing Monitoring Overview has three tiles: In Google, Problems and Waiting or expected. Each tile shows the number of pages and their share of all checked pages, for example "99.6% of 29,709 checked pages".
Each tile also shows how its group moved from the first day of the selected range to the last day. In Google is green when it goes up. Problems is green when it goes down. If the range has only one reading, the tile says "Needs two readings in the range".
Hover the ? of the In Google tile to compare the checks with your sitemap: Checked so far, In your sitemap now, and Not checked yet.
The trend chart
The chart under the tiles shows the selected groups over time. Click a tile to add it to the chart or to remove it. You can show up to two groups. The second group uses the axis on the right, so a small number of problems stays easy to read next to many indexed pages.
Use the controls above the chart to select the range (7d, 30d, 90d or 1y) and the step (day, week or month). If no page was checked yet, the chart shows "No trend data yet".
The newest point of the chart can be a little different from the tile. The tile counts every page by its latest answer. The chart leaves out checks that returned no status.
Changes in the last 7 days
The Changes in the last 7 days card of Indexing Monitoring lists how your pages moved between statuses in the last 7 days. Each row is one kind of move, with the number of pages in the Pages column. Regressions are at the top and gains are at the bottom.
| Row | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Lost indexing | The page was in Google and is not now. |
| New "…" | The page moved to a problem status, for example New "Soft 404". |
| Newly blocked by an error (4xx) | Google now gets a 4xx error for the page. |
| Lost rich results | Google no longer finds valid rich results on the page. |
| Newly blocked by robots.txt | Your robots.txt now blocks the page. |
| Canonical re-picked by Google | Google chose a different canonical address. |
| New in Google | Google reported on the page for the first time this week. |
| Newly indexed | The page is in Google now. |
| Recovered to indexed | The page was out of Google and is back. |
| Gained rich results | Google now finds rich results on the page. |
| Unblocked from robots.txt | Your robots.txt no longer blocks the page. |
Click a row to open Pages with only those pages. The Lost indexing row can show a chip such as "3 of them had clicks (1,240 in 90 days)". Its pages open with the most clicks first.
If nothing moved, the card shows "Nothing changed in the last 7 days".
Where the pages not in Google are
Lower on the page, the Indexing Monitoring Overview has three tables. They show where the pages that are not in Google are.
Pages not in Google, by status
This table has one row for each Google status of pages outside the index. The columns are Status, Pages, Share (of all checked pages) and Change this week (pages now against 7 days ago). A dash in Change this week means that there is no reading from a week ago yet. Click a row to see those pages in Pages.
Pages not in Google, by site section and language
This table shows the part of your site where Google leaves out pages. Select By section or By language.
- Not in Google: checked pages of the group that Google does not have, and the group's part of all missing pages. Hover the figure to see why: Crawled, not indexed, Discovered, not indexed, Unknown to Google or Other.
- In Google: checked pages that are in Google. The share shows only from 10 checked pages.
- Checked: for example "4,096 of 48,166". The other columns count only the checked pages.
Sections come from your section rules, for example Blog or Products. If you have no rules, the table shows "Group your pages into sections". Owners and admins can click Set up sections. Languages come from the address, for example /de/ or de.example.com.
Pages in Google, by sitemap file
This table has one row for each sitemap file: Sitemap file, Listed, Checked, In Google, Not in Google and Not checked yet. Use it to find a sitemap file that Google ignores. A page that two files list counts in both rows. Click a row to open the file in Sitemap Monitoring.
Issues in Site Health Monitoring
Indexing Monitoring does not keep its own list of issues to fix. The issues that it finds, for example pages that lost indexing, canonical conflicts and rich result errors, open in Site Health Monitoring. A banner at the top of the page shows the open issues and links to them.
Troubleshooting
Why does Indexing Monitoring show no data?
If the page asks you to link a property, connect Google Search Console and pick the property that covers the domain. If the property is linked, wait for the first round of checks. Pages appear within 24 hours.
Why are the Indexing Monitoring numbers different from Sitemap Monitoring?
Indexing Monitoring counts every page it asked Google about, also pages that left your sitemap later. Sitemap Monitoring counts the URLs that your sitemaps list now.
Why are the numbers different from Google Search Console?
Indexing Monitoring counts only the pages that it checked with URL Inspection. Search Console's Page indexing report uses its own sample and schedule. If many pages show Not checked yet, the first full round is not complete. See the Full round tile in Settings.
How do I request indexing for a page?
VitalSentinel cannot ask Google to index a page. To ask Google, do these steps:
- Open Pages and click the page.
- Click the Google icon (Open in Google Search Console) in the panel header.
- In Search Console, use Request Indexing.
Why is a page not indexed?
Open the page in Pages. The panel shows Google's status, what Google checked, and what changed since Google dropped the page. For the steps to fix it, click Issues in Site Health Monitoring.
Related
- Pages - every checked page and its detail panel
- Settings - properties, priority pages and the daily checks
- Connect Google Search Console - link the property that Indexing Monitoring needs
- Sitemap Monitoring - the source of the list of pages
- New pages - how fast Google indexes the pages you publish
- Robots.txt Monitoring - rules that can keep Google out of your pages
Data Quality
The Google Search Console Data Quality page shows sitemap pages with no impressions, indexing conflicts, trust checks, hidden queries and data coverage.
Pages
The Indexing Monitoring Pages table lists every checked page with its Google status, Googlebot visits, clicks and history, with a detail panel for each page.
