Why Isn’t It Indexing? Part 04 — WordsByEkta🌿
Why Isn’t It Indexing? Reading the Google Bot’s "Secret Diary"
The Frustration Phase: You’ve done everything right. You submitted the sitemap, requested indexing, and added internal links. But when you check your status, it still says "URL is not on Google."
Most bloggers quit here. They think their blog is "broken." But Google actually leaves you clues in the Indexing Report and the Crawl Stats. To fix the problem, we have to understand why the Google Bot is walking away from your door.
1. Decoding the "Page Indexing" Statuses
Inside GSC, under the Pages tab, Google categorizes your "Not Indexed" posts. If yours is stuck, it’s likely for one of these four reasons:
| GSC Status | The Reality (The Why) | The Fix (The How) |
|---|---|---|
| Discovered - currently not indexed | Google knows the page exists but hasn’t visited (crawled) it yet. | Add more internal links from indexed posts to "invite" the bot over. |
| Crawled - currently not indexed | Google visited and read it, but didn’t think it was valuable enough to list. | Improve content quality. Add depth, better images, and request again. |
| Page with redirect | Blogger's mobile links (?m=1) are confusing the bot. |
Use only main URLs (links ending with .html). Fix theme layout issues if redirects persist — this uses the canonical fix method discussed in the next article, which tells Google Bot to ignore mobile variations even if Blogger redirects them. |
| Alternate page with canonical | Google detects two versions and has chosen the wrong one as the Master (Canonical). | Check if your theme correctly identifies the Canonical version — explained in the next article. |
Quick Deep Dive into Statuses:
Discovered: Your site is currently "Low Priority." The librarian knows the book is in the box but hasn't picked it up yet.
Crawled: This is often a quality check. If a post is too short or looks like a duplicate, Google skips it.
?m=1). If it still throws errors after you've requested the correct URL, it's likely a theme-level issue. (We will cover the "Canonical Fix" in detail in Article 5!)
2. Checking the "Crawl Stats" (The Bot’s Secret Diary)
There is a hidden report in GSC that shows you how many times a day the "Google Bot" visits your house.
Path: Settings ➔ Crawl Stats ➔ Open Report.
Look for Discovery vs. Refresh. You want Google coming to discover new things. If your daily crawl count is zero for more than 3 consecutive days, it’s a red flag—check your sitemap or internal links immediately.
3. The "Crawl Frequency" Habit
New blogs have a low crawl frequency (visiting every few days). Established blogs get visited every few minutes.
How to move from Low to High? Consistency. If you publish regularly, the Bot "learns" your schedule and starts showing up exactly when you post. This is how you "train" the librarian to check your shelf first.
WordsByEkta🌿 Final Thought: If your blog feels invisible, don't panic. Most of the time, it’s a technical "misunderstanding" between your blog and the Google Bot. Use Crawl Stats to see if the Bot is visiting, and use the Indexing Report to see if a Redirect or Canonical error is blocking the way. Once you understand the why, the how becomes easy.
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