About the Indexability Checker
A page can be blocked from search for several reasons at once: an error status, a redirect, a noindex in the HTML or the X-Robots-Tag header, a robots.txt rule that stops Googlebot crawling it, or a canonical pointing somewhere else. This indexability checker looks at all of these signals for one public URL and combines them into a single verdict with the reason.
Use it when a page is missing from Google, after launching a site (staging noindex tags are a classic mistake), or before promoting an important page. Keep in mind that being indexable only means nothing on your side is blocking it. Google still decides whether to index a page based on quality and demand, so check Search Console's URL Inspection for its actual status.
How to use it
- Enter the URL of the page you want to test.
- Run the check to evaluate status, redirects, robots directives, robots.txt and canonical.
- Read the verdict and the specific signal that blocks indexing, if any.
- Remove the blocker, then request indexing in Google Search Console.
Frequently asked questions
If a page is indexable, why is it still not in Google?
Indexable means no technical signal on your site prevents indexing. Google may still choose not to index a page if it sees thin or duplicate content, low demand, or has not crawled it yet. Improve the content, link to it from relevant pages, include it in your sitemap and use URL Inspection in Search Console to request indexing.
Does blocking a page in robots.txt remove it from Google?
No. robots.txt controls crawling, not indexing. A blocked URL can still appear in results, often without a description, if other pages link to it. To keep a page out of the index, allow crawling and add a noindex meta tag or X-Robots-Tag header so Google can see the instruction.
What is the X-Robots-Tag header?
X-Robots-Tag is an HTTP response header that carries the same directives as a meta robots tag, such as noindex or nofollow. It is useful for non-HTML files like PDFs and images, or for applying rules server-wide. Because it is invisible in the page source, it is easy to leave on by mistake, which is why this checker reads it.