Search Console's URL Inspection tool shows what Google knows about a specific page on your site. It also enables you to test the live version of a page against many requirements for appearing on Google, which is useful when fixing indexing issues for a specific page.
Most common uses of URL Inspection:
- To troubleshoot why a page isn't on Google.
- To confirm that you have fixed an issue reported by Google on a specific page.
- Requesting indexing for a single page.
Quick start
To inspect a page:
- Type the full page URL in the search bar at the top of any page in Search Console (quick link).
- OR
shown next to a URL in many reports.
- Check the page verdict at the top of the report:
- URL is on Google: The page is indexed, and there are no problems*--congratulations!
- URL is on Google, but has issues: The page is indexed, but there are one or more problems that might affect your page in search results. Check the status of each section under Enhancements & Experience to find the issue(s). Expand a section to see issue details.
- URL is not on Google: Check the Page indexing status to see what the problem is. Expand the page indexing section to see why the URL wasn't indexed. This section includes the following important information:
- Crawl allowed?: If your site explicitly disallows crawling, Google won't be able to index the page. If this is not Yes, read here.
- Page fetch: Whether Google had trouble fetching the page for a technical issue (such as a 404 error or a server error). If this is not Successful, read here.
- Indexing allowed?: Whether your site specifically blocks indexing. If this is not Yes, read here.
- Google-selected canonical: If this is not a canonical page--that is, it's a duplicate of another page on your site--then the page won't be indexed. Read more
- If the Last crawl date is empty, Google simply hasn't found the page. In that case, click Test live URL and then click Request indexing.
* "URL is on Google" isn't a guarantee of appearing in Search results. The tool doesn't test all conditions for appearing on Google, such as manual actions or violations of Google spam policies or legal policies. Learn how to confirm whether your page is on Google.
- If you find and fix a problem, inspect the page again by clicking Test live URL. If the problem is fixed, click Request indexing to tell Google that the page has changed and is ready for another index attempt.
Go deeper into the report
URL Inspection shows information from two sources:
- Google Index data (the default view) shows information from Google's system about the page. This information is refreshed each time Google crawls and indexes the page. This data is used by Google to generate search results.
- Live test view data is generated when you click Test Live URL in the Google Index view. The results are not as comprehensive as the Google index information, but the live test is useful when fixing a problem on a page. After running the live test, you can toggle back and forth between the indexed information and live test information. To re-run the live test, click the rerun button
on the test page. Google does not use this information.
Here is a screenshot showing data about a page from the Google index:
In the diagram above:
- 1 - Toggle between information from the Google index and information from a live test. In the image above, the live test has already been run. When you first inspect a page, you must click Test Live URL to generate live test results.
- 2 - The page verdict describes whether or not the page can appear on Google, with some qualifications, and whether there are non-critical issues on the page. In the example above, the page is indexed (page indexing status shows "Page is indexed") but there are non-critical problems, listed in the Enhancements & Experience section (item 4). More details
- 3 - The page indexing status describes whether Google was able to index the page in the last indexing attempt. Expand this section for more details about the last indexing attempt. Click to open this section to see more details about whether the page was (or can be) crawled and indexed. In the example above, the page was indexed successfully. More details
- 4 - Enhancements & Experience holds additional information about this page, including the mobile usability score, HTTPS status, and any structured data found on the page. In the example above, there were issues with mobile usability, HTTPS, and a FAQ structured data item found on the page. More details
Key sections of the report
Page verdict
At the top of the report you'll see an overall page verdict describing whether it's likely that your page can appear in Google Search. See possible verdicts and what they mean.
If the verdict includes URL is on Google it means that the page probably is, or can be, on Google. This is not a guarantee, because some conditions aren't checked by the test. To know for sure whether your page is appearing in Google you should search for your page URL on Google. Your page might still have some non-critical issues, which will be described in the Enhancements & Experience section.
If the verdict includes URL is not on Google, then the tested URL almost certainly isn't or can't be shown in Google Search results. This is not necessarily an error; see Duplicate and alternate URLs.
Page indexing status
The page indexing status describes whether the page has been indexed (Google index view) or can likely be indexed (live test view) by Google. If the page indexing status is valid, then the page can probably appear on Google (barring other critical issues). Remember that being indexed doesn't guarantee that the page will be shown on Google, but it's a necessary first step. It means that the page is in our system.
Expand this section to see details such as when the page was indexed, or anything that might be blocking the page from being indexed. If the status indicates that the page isn't indexed, this section should explain why.
Here is the most important information in this section:
- Page indexing / Page availability: The status shown at the top of the section provides a good explanation of whether the page could be indexed, and if not, why not. You can find a description of each status, and how to fix indexing issues, for the indexed information (Page indexing) or the live test (Page availability).
- Last crawl: When Google last visited the page. All Google index information on the page was generated on that date. If you made any changes since this date, they won't be reflected in Google Search. If you have made important changes, run the live test and click Request indexing if you need the updates in Google Search quickly.
- Crawl allowed? Whether Google is allowed to crawl the page, or is blocked by robots.txt. If Google can't crawl the page, it probably won't make it into search, and you'll need to fix the blocking rule.
- Indexing allowed? Whether your page allows Google to index it. If not, read about noindex, and remove the noindex directive for this page if you want the page indexed.
- Page fetch: Whether Google could fetch the page in the last indexing attempt. If not, fix the problem so that Google can see the most up to date version of your page. If fetching fails, Google might continue to show a previous version of your page from the index. The detailed fetch status is shown next to the Page indexing or Page availability header. If a crawling fetch fails because of a 500-level reason, Google will probably continue to show the last version in search results; for a 400-level reason Google probably won't continue serving the page. You can find full information about each status in the documentation.
Duplicate URLs: When Google finds multiple URLs that lead to the same page contents, it groups these URLs together and chooses one as the canonical URL for this group. For example, if one URL shows a list of dresses grouped by size, and another URL shows the same dresses grouped by color, and a third URL is the same list, but optimized for display on mobile devices, then Google will group all these URLs together and choose a canonical URL. The other URLs are marked as duplicate URLs and aren't usually shown in search results. Duplicate URLs are marked as "Not indexed" in the Google Index results, and the Page indexing verdict indicates that this is a duplicate URL. This is working as intended unless you think that Google has chosen the wrong page as canonical. Duplicate status isn't shown in the live test because checking for duplicates is only done by the index, not in the live test. Learn more about duplicate pages.
Alternate URLs: When Google finds similar URLs that are appropriate for specific devices (AMP pages, desktop browser, mobile browser), or marked as translations of the same page, Google might mark them as alternates for that device type, or language. Alternate versions are served when appropriate, based on the language or device of the user. But an alternate will always be labeled as "not indexed (alternate): in the page indexing section and the page verdict. This is working as intended. Alternates can be shown in the live test, because alternate pages must be explicitly marked or redirected to the appropriate device by the host site. The canonical URL is shown in the Indexing subsection in the non-live report. The URL Inspection tool checks only device alternates, not language alternates.
Video indexing status
If the page was indexed and Google found a video on the page, this section provides information about the video found on the page, and whether Google could index it. Google can index a video only if it is embedded in an indexed page and it meets the video indexing requirements. Google can index only one video on a page.
Don't confuse Google video indexing with video search on YouTube. All videos on YouTube can appear in Google Search, but a video (YouTube or otherwise) can't be associated with a web page in search results unless Google also finds and indexes the page hosting that video. More about video indexing in Search.
Enhancements & Experience
Mobile usability
Whether or not this page has mobile usability issues. Most web traffic today is on mobile devices, and Google tries to show search results that behave well on mobile devices.
HTTPS
Whether or not the page can be served over HTTPS in Search results. Google recommends that all websites support HTTPS to enhance user privacy and security.
Associated AMP page
If this page has an associated AMP page (or is itself an AMP page), this section will be present and contain information about the AMP page.
Structured data on the page
If Google finds any structured data on the page, each type of structured data found will get its own section here, with information about any errors encountered.
FAQs
Is my page on Google?
The page verdict in the URL Inspection report shows only the likelihood that your page is on Google (or is capable of being on Google, for the live test).
To confirm that a page actually is on Google:
- Copy the URL of the page from your browser.
- Remove the https:// or http:// at the start
- Remove everything after the ? or # at the end of the URL. So if your URL is
https://example.com/some/page?hl=en#myanchor, you'll haveexample.com/some/pagewhen you're done trimming the URL. - Open up a Google search page, and search for that URL in the search box. Don't search by pasting the URL in your browser's URL bar: you must open up google.com and paste the URL into the search box.
- If your page appears in the results, it's on Google. If not, it probably isn't. Start troubleshooting.
Can my new or updated page appear in Google?
If you run the live test, the page verdict for the URL Inspection says whether a page seems eligible to appear in Google Search results, not necessarily that it is appearing in Search results. A few eligibility conditions are not tested by the report, such as whether the page or site has a removal request or is blocked for some policy reason. See a more complete list of conditions that aren't checked. To check whether a page actually is on Google, see here.
What extra features did Google find on my page?
If Google finds additional items on the page such as structured data, or linked AMP pages, you can find additional information and status in the Enhancements & Experience section. Expand these items for more information or if the verdict for a section indicates issues.
If Google has found videos on the page, there will be a Video discovery section in the page (not available in the live test).
How does my page look to Google?
For successfully indexed pages, you can see the HTML and HTTP requests/responses made when the page was crawled. In the live test, you can also see a screenshot of the page retrieved by Google.
To get this information, click View crawled page or View tested page.
- The page isn't actually missing, it's just very far down in the results. Check to see if the page is actually missing.
- The site or page is new, and Google hasn't had time to find the page yet.
- The page isn't linked from anywhere else. Google finds most pages by following links from other pages, or by reading a sitemap that you've posted. If you're using a web hosting platform for your website, they'll probably make this sitemap for you.
- The page or site has a manual action.
- The page or site has blocked Google from reaching or indexing the page by means of a login requirement, a robots.txt rule (telling Google not to visit the page), or a noindex rule (telling Google not to index the page). All of these can be detected using the URL Inspection tool as described on this page.