# page-indexing-review

Page Indexing Review


Overview
Page Indexing Review is the skill of checking whether the pages you care about are actually eligible to appear in Google. For a one-person company, this is one of the highest-leverage technical SEO reviews because you can publish strong pages and still get no result if they are excluded, duplicated, softened by canonicals, or hidden behind bad route hygiene.

When to Use This Skill
Use this when important pages are not showing up in search, when impressions stay near zero after publishing, when Search Console reports excluded pages, or when a redesign changed routes, templates, canonicals, or sitemap behavior.

What This Skill Does
This skill helps you turn Search Console indexing signals into page decisions. It checks URL Inspection, Page Indexing status, canonical selection, duplicate paths, sitemap inclusion, and redirect behavior. The goal is to separate real crawl and index blockers from pages that simply need better content.

How to Use
Step 1: Start with the pages that matter most. Do not audit every URL equally. Use homepage, money pages, category pages, and top skill pages first.
Step 2: Use URL Inspection on the exact canonical URL. Confirm whether Google can crawl the page, whether it is indexed, and whether the selected canonical matches your intended canonical.
Step 3: Review the Page Indexing report for exclusion patterns. Pay attention to duplicate without user-selected canonical, alternate page with proper canonical tag, soft 404, crawled currently not indexed, discovered currently not indexed, and redirect issues.
Step 4: Compare the inspected URL to the sitemap and internal links. A good page should appear in the sitemap on its clean canonical path and receive internal links from relevant pages.
Step 5: Check route hygiene. If old paths, `.html` variants, preview routes, backup files, or template pages are discoverable, they dilute crawl and send mixed canonical signals.
Step 6: Decide the right fix. Some pages need technical cleanup, some need consolidation, and some simply are not worth indexing.

Output
The output should include:
The URL reviewed
Its current indexing state
The selected canonical versus intended canonical
The likely root cause
The action: fix, merge, redirect, noindex, or leave alone

What Good Looks Like
A healthy indexing layer has:
Important pages returning `200`
One canonical URL per public page
Sitemap entries that match live canonical URLs
No internal links to backup, template, or preview pages
Clear separation between pages worth indexing and pages that should stay out of search

Common Mistakes
Do not treat every excluded page as a problem.
Do not keep backup files or old `.html` routes in the sitemap.
Do not debug indexing without checking the exact canonical URL.
Do not keep publishing new pages while canonical and redirect hygiene are unresolved.