Why Google is not indexing your site pages and what to do about it

The reason may not lie in your content or technical errors, but in what is known as crawl budget—the limit Googlebot sets for scanning your site. Googlebot is a search engine crawler that regularly visits your website, scans your pages, and decides which ones should appear in search results. But this process is not limitless: each site has a restriction on how many pages Google is willing to crawl within a certain period of time. What is crawl budget? Crawl budget refers to the number of pages Googlebot is willing to crawl on your site during a specific time frame. Think of it as a visitor with very limited time: they can't view everything, so they have to prioritize what to check first. For instance, if you have 10,000 URLs but your crawl budget allows crawling only 2,000, the rest simply won’t be seen by Googlebot. And if those 2,000 pages are mostly product filters or technical duplicates, important content like your homepage or a new landing page might be ignored. What it looks like in practice Imagine an online store with 6,000 pages. Half of them are variations of a product by color, size, or other minor details: /product/red /product/blue /product/xl These pages are useful for users, but for Googlebot, they contain nearly identical information. While it's busy crawling them, it might skip: Your updated homepage A new seasonal campaign A trending blog post already gaining traction on social media Even high-quality and fully prepared content might not be indexed quickly if crawl budget is used inefficiently. Crawlability vs. crawl budget: what’s the difference? Crawlability and crawl budget may sound similar, but they govern different aspects of site crawling. Both are important: if Googlebot has no access or doesn’t consider a page a priority, even the best content might go unnoticed. Crawlability = Access Crawlability answers a basic question: can Googlebot access this page? If the answer is no, the page won’t be crawled, no matter how valuable it is. For example, a page may physically exist but be blocked via robots.txt or meta tags—essentially a "no entry" sign. Googlebot will skip it and crawl something else instead. Crawl budget = Priority and choice Crawl budget comes into play once a page is accessible. The question becomes: should Googlebot crawl this page now? Even if technically available, Googlebot might decide it’s not worth the effort at the moment. For example, you might have an event page from 2017 that’s still live but outdated and unused. Googlebot may ignore it for months. So, crawlability and crawl budget are two separate but interrelated processes. If a page isn’t accessible, it won’t be discovered. If it is, but not deemed important, indexing could take a long time. Why crawl budget matters—and when it becomes an issue If Googlebot hasn’t crawled a page, it can’t appear in search. Sometimes Google may not even know a page exists, or it could be showing an outdated version in the search results. Crawl budget determines whether Google sees your page and when. This directly affects if and how well your page will rank. For example, if you launch a new product page and Googlebot hasn’t crawled it, it won’t appear in results. Or if you update pricing across service pages but Googlebot hasn’t recrawled them, users might see old pricing. When crawl budget becomes a real concern While crawl budget affects all sites, it is especially critical for: Large websites with thousands or millions of pages News and media outlets that publish new content frequently E-commerce websites with lots of filters, categories, and product variations If Googlebot can’t keep up, your most important or timely content might be the first thing it misses. What about small sites? Small websites (under 500–1,000 indexable pages) typically don’t have serious crawl budget problems. In these cases, Googlebot usually handles all pages. Here, the focus should be on what prevents indexing rather than crawling. Common causes: Pages blocked by noindex or canonical tags Weak internal linking Duplicate or low-quality content Tip: Check the Pages report in Google Search Console to see which pages are excluded from indexing and why. How Google determines crawl budget Google bases crawl budget on two main factors: Crawl demand Crawl capacity (how much load your server can handle) Together, these form the final crawl budget. What influences crawl demand Crawl demand depends on how valuable or fresh Google considers your content. With limited resources, Googlebot prioritizes what appears to matter most. Key factors: Perceived inventory: If your sitemap has 40,000 URLs but only 3,000 are linked internally, Google may assume the rest are unimportant or nonexistent. Popularity: Pages with good backlinks or engagement are crawled more frequently. Staleness: Pages that haven’t been updated in years lose priority, while frequently updated content attracts more visits. What limits Google’s crawling Even if Google wants to crawl everything, it won’t if your site shows signs of instability. Crawl budget may drop due to: Slow hosting Server timeouts or errors Google’s internal crawl limits per domain Think of it as a formula: Crawl demand × site capacity = crawl budget Crawl signals: how to influence Googlebot’s priorities Google doesn’t crawl all pages equally. It favors pages that seem updated, relevant, or useful to users. Signals that affect crawl budget allocation: robots.txt: blocks certain URLs from being crawled. noindex tags: allow crawling but exclude pages from search results. canonical tags: point to the preferred version of duplicate or similar pages. sitemap entries: help guide Googlebot to key pages. internal link depth: pages easily reached from the homepage are prioritized. For example: A review page with strong backlinks and internal links is likely crawled often. A filtered version with no links and duplicate content? Probably ignored. What wastes crawl budget and how to fix it Imagine Googlebot flipping through your site with limited energy. The more time it wastes on low-value pages, the less it has for top content. Major crawl budget wasters and solutions: Duplicate pages Google sees similar URLs with the same content as separate pages. This drains crawl energy. Fix: Use canonical tags to point to the main version. Apply noindex to non-essential duplicates. Broken links and soft 404s These are pages that no longer exist but are still linked or listed in sitemaps. Fix: Clean internal links. Set 301 redirects to relevant pages. Remove dead URLs from your sitemap. Orphan pages These are pages without any internal links—invisible to both users and Google. Fix: Link them from menus, footers, or relevant articles. Remove or noindex outdated orphan content. Faceted navigation URL variations from filters (color, size, price) create crawl loops. Fix: Block such URLs in robots.txt. Configure parameter handling in GSC. Canonicalize to main product/category pages. How to check crawl activity Once you understand crawl budget, monitor it in Google Search Console (GSC). GSC shows: How often Googlebot visits What it crawls Whether your server performs well Where to find crawl data: Go to Settings > Crawling > Open Report You’ll see a 90-day snapshot of crawl stats, including: Total crawl requests Total download size Average response time Signals you may be hitting crawl limits: Pages marked as "Discovered—currently not indexed" Pages marked as "Crawled—currently not indexed" Host status section shows whether your site is stable. Warnings may include: robots.txt fetch issues DNS resolution problems Server connectivity errors Crawl requests breakdown: By response code (e.g. 200, 404, 301) By file type (HTML, images, scripts) By request purpose (Discovery or Refresh) By Googlebot type (Desktop, Mobile, Image) Click on any element for URL-level details. For large or e-commerce websites, run a comprehensive crawl audit using tools like Semrush Log File Analyzer, Botify, or OnCrawl. These help you: Track Googlebot’s behavior Find undercrawled areas Optimize crawl budget use If your pages take too long to be indexed or essential content isn’t appearing in search, a professional SEO audit is worth considering. We’ll analyze how your site uses its crawl budget, assess technical health, site structure, and indexation. Reach out—we’ll help make your site not just visible, but a priority for search engines. This article available in Ukrainian.