5 Common Google Indexing Issues (And How to Fix Them)
by Greg Johnson, Owner / Developer
5 Common Google Indexing Issues (And How to Fix Them)
You’ve launched your website, written great content, and submitted it to Google—but your pages still aren’t showing up in search results.
This is a common frustration, especially for small and medium businesses trying to grow their online presence. In this guide, we’ll explain why pages sometimes aren’t indexed by Google—and how to troubleshoot and fix each issue.
1. Your Pages Are Blocked by robots.txt
If your website’s robots.txt file tells search engines not to crawl certain pages or folders, those pages won’t be indexed. This is often accidental—especially if you’ve duplicated a staging site setup.
How to fix it:
- Check your
robots.txtfile atyourdomain.com/robots.txt - Look for lines like
Disallow: / - Remove or adjust any rules that are preventing Google from accessing your pages
2. Meta Tags Are Telling Google to Skip Pages
Your page may include a meta tag like <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> which explicitly tells Google not to index that page.
How to fix it:
- Open your page source and search for the
noindextag - If it’s there in error, remove it or change it to
index,follow
3. Low-Quality or Duplicate Content
Google avoids indexing pages with thin, duplicated, or low-value content. If you’ve copied text from elsewhere or created near-identical service pages, this could be the problem.
How to fix it:
- Rewrite duplicate pages with unique, useful content
- Add more detail, structure, and relevance to thin pages
- Use internal links to help Google see your site’s content hierarchy
4. You Haven’t Submitted a Sitemap
While Google can crawl sites without a sitemap, submitting one helps guide it to all your important pages—especially if you have a newer or less authoritative site.
How to fix it:
- Create a sitemap using your CMS or a tool like Screaming Frog
- Submit it in Google Search Console
- Keep it updated whenever new pages are added
5. Crawling Issues or Errors
Sometimes, pages fail to index due to site errors—like broken links, slow load speeds, or server timeouts. You’ll often see this listed as “Crawled - currently not indexed” in Search Console.
How to fix it:
- Use the URL Inspection Tool in Google Search Console
- Check for mobile usability or Core Web Vitals issues
- Fix 404s, broken links, and server errors
Final Thoughts
Getting indexed by Google isn’t just about submitting your site—it’s about making it accessible, valuable, and technically sound.
Need help figuring it all out? At The Web People, we specialise in SEO support for small/medium businesses.