GSC status
How to fix “crawled — currently not indexed”
Google already has the page. Fetching it again is not the missing step. This status is a judgement after the crawl: not worth storing, duplicate of something already stored, or canonicalised away. Recrawl ≠ index.
What this status actually means
Last crawl is set; coverage is still excluded
URL Inspection shows a last crawl date and “Crawled - currently not indexed”. That is not a queue delay. The fetch happened. The index write did not.
How we watch it
After we submit a URL, verification decays 1h → 6h → 24h → 3d → 7d → 14d. Each pass records coverageState. A later crawl that still says “currently not indexed” advances the schedule; it does not count as success.
Crawled-but-excluded vs quality, duplicate, and canonical
The product records coverage; it does not invent a percentage of URLs that “recover” from this state.
| Cause | Check | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Quality / thin — crawled, then declined | Inspection: recent last-crawl, no robots block, no noindex, canonical is self (or absent). The page is short, boilerplate, or interchangeable with something already indexed. | Make the page worth storing: unique substance, a real internal link, a reason it is not a duplicate. Then wait for a recrawl. Submitting a still-thin page does not change the decision. |
| Near-duplicate of a URL Google already indexed | Inspection → Google-selected canonical. If it names another URL, this crawl was classified as a copy. Cross-check duplicate without user-selected canonical and alternate page with proper canonical tag. | Consolidate onto one URL. Do not keep submitting both. |
| Canonical points elsewhere after a successful crawl | Diagnose compares the live canonical href to the submitted URL. A mismatch means this address is not the one Google is being asked to store. | Self-canonical this URL if it should index, or submit the canonical URL instead. A recrawl of the wrong address still will not index it. |
| noindex added after an earlier crawl | Diagnose flags meta robots noindex on fetch. Coverage may flip from crawled-not-indexed to excluded by noindex on the next inspect. | Remove the tag only if you want the URL indexed. See excluded by noindex tag. |
| Still deciding, inside the inspect window | Our next checks run at 1h, 6h, 24h, 3d, 7d, then 14d. After the sixth miss the row is marked not_indexed. That is an honest label, not a hidden retry. | Let the schedule finish. Requesting recrawl every day does not skip it, and recrawl ≠ index. If it is excluded after 14 days, fix the page. |
What to do instead of refreshing Search Console
1
Confirm it was actually crawled
URL Inspection → last crawl date. If that date is empty, you are on the wrong page — use discovered, currently not indexed.
2
Fix quality, duplication, or the canonical — not the sitemap ping
The ping endpoint is gone anyway (what replaced pinging Google). A sitemap lastmod can trigger a recrawl; it cannot force an index write.
3
Re-inspect, don’t re-spam submit
One request after the fix is enough. We will keep reading coverage on the decay schedule. Related: the indexing path in order.
Common questions
Related: All indexing issues · Duplicate without user-selected canonical · Alternate page with proper canonical tag · Discovered — currently not indexed · Soft 404 · Excluded by noindex tag · Blocked by robots.txt
Google crawled it. Why isn’t it indexed?
Crawl means Google fetched the HTML. Index means it chose to store the URL. Those are different decisions. A recrawl can happen every day and the URL can stay excluded.
How long should I wait after a recrawl request?
There is no SLA. We re-inspect tracked URLs at 1 hour, 6 hours, 24 hours, 3 days, 7 days, then 14 days. After the last slot we mark the URL not_indexed — we do not relabel it indexed. If it is still crawled-not-indexed at the end, fix the page rather than submitting again.
Is this the same as discovered, currently not indexed?
No. Discovered means Google has not fetched the URL yet. Crawled means it has, and declined to index. Different tables, different fixes — see discovered, currently not indexed.
Will submitting it again force indexing?
No. We submit and measure. Nobody can guarantee Google indexing. Re-submission after a successful crawl does not override a quality or duplicate decision.
Watch coverage change — or not.
We re-inspect at 1h, 6h, 24h, 3d, 7d and 14d and record the state Google actually returned. 25 free, no card.
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