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Index (search index) The index is the database in which a search engine keeps the pages it has decided to store out of those it crawled, and the only place it selects search results from; it is also called the search index. Being found on Google
What is Index (search index)?
The index is the database in which a search engine keeps the pages it has decided to store out of those it crawled, and the only place it selects search results from; it is also called the search index.
Google describes Search as working in three stages: crawling, indexing and serving results. The crawler finds and downloads a page; the system analyzes the page’s content and, if it finds it worth storing, adds it to the index; when someone searches, results are selected only from this index. A page that is not in the index cannot appear in any search, however good it is. If you would like to read your site’s index status together, SEO consulting starts with this picture.
Being crawled does not mean being indexed. Google states plainly that it does not index every page it finds; low-quality content, a noindex directive or problems stemming from the page’s design can prevent indexing. The “Crawled - currently not indexed” status in Search Console shows exactly this difference: the page was read but not stored. We explained how to read this status in a separate guide.
The deliberate way to keep a page out of the index is the noindex directive. How fast a page gets into the index depends partly on how often the crawler visits the site; the limits of that are explained in the crawl budget entry.
The index and ranking are also two different things. Being in the index is the precondition for a page to be able to appear in search results; which search it appears in and in what position is a separate decision. That is why the first question about a “not showing up on Google” complaint is always the same: is the page not in the index, or is it in the index but not visible for the searched term?
How do you tell whether a site is in the index?
- A Google search starting with “site:” followed by the domain shows whether anything is in the index; Google notes that this search may not show every address.
- Search Console’s Page indexing report shows how many pages are in the index, how many are outside it, and why.
- The URL Inspection tool tells you whether a single address is on Google.
First-hand example: in the Search Console reading dated 18–20.09.2026, 461 pages of this site were in the index and 114 addresses were outside it. Most of what was outside was expected: the samples tested on the live site from the 70 addresses returning 404 were addresses left over from the domain’s previous site, and 11 addresses were variants deliberately redirected to a single address. The lesson: the total outside the index is not a measure of a problem on its own; it is read line by line. We gathered where the report sits in the Search Console guide, and the reasons a site does not appear at all in the guide to not showing up on Google.
If you want to find out together why your site doesn’t show up on Google, SEO consulting audits every layer from crawling to indexing and makes the fix in the source code.
Being found on Google
IndexNow is an open protocol that tells search engines immediately that a page has changed. Answer engines
INP (Interaction to Next Paint) is the time from a user interaction until the page responds visually, and Google counts anything under 200 milliseconds as good. Performance
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JSON-LD (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) is a structured data format that declares a page’s meaning in a machine-readable form without changing the page’s appearance at all. Answer engines
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Language tag (BCP 47) A language tag is the standard coding form that tells machines which language a text is in. Multilingual
LCP (Largest Contentful Paint) is the paint time of the largest content element in a page’s visible area, and Google counts anything under 2.5 seconds as good. Performance
Live region A live region is an area of a page whose changes a screen reader has to announce to the user. Accessibility
llms.txt is an optional file placed in a website’s root directory that summarises, in Markdown, what the site is about and where its most important pages are for language models. Answer engines
Locale A locale is the setting that defines a user’s language and region together and determines the formatting rules. Multilingual
Localisation (Localization) is adapting content to the culture, habits and search language of a target market; it is a wider undertaking than translation. Multilingual
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noindex is a directive asking that a page not be added to a search engine’s index, given either with the robots meta tag inside the page or with the server’s X-Robots-Tag response header. Being found on Google
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Redirect chain A redirect chain is when an address reaches its final address not in a single hop but by passing through more than one redirect; for example, if an old address is redirected first to an intermediate address and from there to the final address, there is a two-hop chain. Site migration
Reflow A reflow is the browser recomputing the positions and sizes of elements on a page after a change. Performance
Relative luminance is the value expressing a colour’s perceived lightness between 0 and 1, and it is the basis of the contrast ratio calculation. Accessibility
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Screen reader A screen reader is assistive technology that turns on-screen content into speech or braille output and lets the user navigate by keyboard. Accessibility
Search Console is a free service from Google for monitoring a site’s status in Google Search and for seeing and fixing its problems. Being found on Google
Semantic HTML means choosing each element for its meaning rather than its appearance — a heading element for a heading, a button element for a button, a list element for a list. Accessibility
Sitemap A sitemap is a file, usually written in XML, that lists the addresses of a site’s pages and, optionally, their last modification dates for search engines in a single file. Being found on Google
Soft 404 A soft 404 is a page that shows visitors “page not found” or empty content but returns a 200 (success) code from the server instead of an error code; Google treats these pages as error pages and does not index them. Site migration
Structured data is an additional layer that labels a page’s content with a standard vocabulary machines can understand. Answer engines
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Text expansion is the same content being of different lengths in different languages, and the layout having to flex accordingly. Multilingual
Translation memory A translation memory is a database that stores previously translated sentences and suggests them when the same or a similar sentence comes up again. Multilingual
TTFB (Time to First Byte) is the time between the browser sending a request and receiving the first byte from the server. Performance
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URL inventory A URL inventory is a single list that gathers every address of a site that search engines know — current pages, address variants and old addresses; in a site redesign or migration, the redirect map is derived from this list. Site migration
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WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) is the international standard published by the W3C that defines the accessibility of web content through testable success criteria. Accessibility
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x-default is a special hreflang value declaring the default page to show when no language version matches the user’s language. Multilingual