In this article, I will show you how to fix Discovered – currently not indexed and Crawled – currently not indexed on Google Search Console.
Indexing is the most important aspect of SEO, without it, there is no SEO. Just imagine, you did keyword research, wrote and publish a masterpiece article and you are hoping to start ranking and driving traffic to your site only to discover that it wasn’t indexed. That’s heartbreaking like losing your lover to your best friend.
What is Discovered/Crawled-Currently not Indexed?
Discovered – currently not indexed means Google is aware of the page but hasn’t crawled and indexed it while Crawled – currently not indexed means the URL was crawled but hasn’t been indexed.
Causes of Discovered/Crawled-Currently not Indexed
- Poor content: Having poorly written content can result in this. Poor content is a short article and a “copy and paste” article or simply say a low valued content.
- Poor internal linking: Having orphan pages or posts can cause it. Orphan pages are pages without any link pointing to them. These pages are stand-alone pages.
- New Website: This is a common issue for new websites with a lot of content. It is sometimes intentional by Google until they see the site as valuable.
- Unknown: There are other causes of this issue which I don’t have any idea of.
Discovered currently not indexed can last forever according to John Muller of Google. This is what he said about it:
“That can be forever. It’s something where we just don’t crawl and index all pages. And it’s completely normal for any website that we don’t have everything indexed.
And, especially with a newer website if you have a lot of content, then I would assume it’s expected that a lot of the new content for a while will be discovered and not indexed.
And then over time usually it kind of shifts over, like well it’s actually crawled, or it’s actually indexed, when we see that there’s actually value in focusing more on the website itself. But it’s not guaranteed.”
He then continued by saying:
“So from that point of view it’s not that I would say you should just wait a little bit and suddenly things will get better with crawling and indexing. It’s more that, like continue working on the website and making sure that our systems recognize that there’s value in crawling and indexing more and then over time we will crawl and index more.”
So let’s get down to how I got this issue fixed.
Discovered/Crawled- Currently Not Indexed Solution
1. Google Search Console
- Go to your GSC account
- Click on Coverage>>> excluded >>> Discovered- Currently Not Indexed
- On this page, click on the URL you want to get indexed
- Click on the search icon to inspect the URL
- You get this response URL is not on Google
- Lastly, click request for indexing.
After a few minutes or hours, it will get indexed, if it doesn’t. Try the next solution.
2. Internal link
Create a proper internal link on every post. No post should be without an internal link and no post should be orphaned. Having internal links not only helps a post to be indexed but also helps for ranking on Google.
To get a page/post indexed using internal links, do these: simply link the post having this issue to a post that has been indexed on Google. Copy the indexed post URL, paste it in on Google inspect tool and request the index. The reason to do this is to alert Google that there’s a change in the post.
3. Social media
Sharing your post on social media, social bookmarking sites or high authority sites can help to get your URL crawled and indexed by Google especially post with a high engagement rate.
4. Build links
Having a backlink from high authority sites to an unindexed URL can help fix it. For example, I brought an expired domain with quality links pointing to it. I noticed that, once I post on the site, it gets indexed immediately. For a new site, quality link building and commenting backlinks can help solve Discovered- currently not indexed.
5. Run Ads
This is magical, I have tried this severally and my URL got indexed. You can run native ads, social media or even in-push ads (from Propeller, Adsterra and so on).
6. Google News Approval
Google News is a news aggregator service developed by Google. It presents a continuous flow of links to articles organized by thousands of publishers and magazines. You are to apply for Google news for your website to be seen. This helps to drive traffic to your site and aids in fast indexing in minutes.
After getting Google News approval for my site (Ideapify), some of the URLs started getting indexed. Getting Google News approval for a site is quite easy. The requirement is almost the same as Adsense approval. See how to get Google News approval.
7. Google Business Profile
Google Business Profile formerly known as Google My Business is a citational site where you can add the name of your website or business name, address, phone number and website. If your site of business doesn’t have a physical address, you can still get it verified.
After successful verification of your business, make you create a post with the link of the unindexed post. Having a link from your Google business profile not only helps to get your content indexed but also helps to create trust for your site.
8. Rank Math IndexNow
This is a plugin by Rank math that ensure your content gets indexed faster and more efficiently.
With IndexNow, any content published, updated, or deleted on the website gets submitted to the IndexNow in the background. As a result, all IndexNow-enabled search engines receive the latest changes about a site allowing for faster indexing.
9. WordPress Ping Sites
These are sites WordPress automatically sends a ping to whenever you publish or edit a post. It notifies the sites about the post.
Now by default, WordPress notifies only one ping service but we can extend this limit by pinging more services or by adding them manually.
How to Add the Ping Sites
- Login to your WordPress site
- Click settings>>>writing
- Scroll down to the bottom of the page.
- Copy the WordPress ping sites list below.
- Paste it in the box which is below “Update Services”
- Finally, click save
WordPress Ping Sites List
- http://rpc.pingomatic.com
- http://rpc.twingly.com
- http://api.feedster.com/ping
- http://api.moreover.com/RPC2
- http://api.moreover.com/ping
- http://www.blogdigger.com/RPC2
- http://www.blogshares.com/rpc.php
- http://www.blogsnow.com/ping
- http://www.blogstreet.com/xrbin/xmlrpc.cgi
- http://bulkfeeds.net/rpc
- http://www.newsisfree.com/xmlrpctest.php
- http://ping.blo.gs/http://ping.feedburner.com
- http://ping.syndic8.com/xmlrpc.php
- http://ping.weblogalot.com/rpc.php
- http://rpc.blogrolling.com/pinger/
- http://rpc.technorati.com/rpc/ping
- http://rpc.weblogs.com/RPC2
- http://www.feedsubmitter.com
- http://blo.gs/ping.php
- http://www.pingerati.net
- http://www.pingmyblog.com
- http://geourl.org/ping
- http://ipings.com
- http://www.weblogalot.com/ping
So these are the solutions to Discovered – Currently not Indexed or Crawled – Currently not Indexed In Google Search Console.
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