Making Sense of Pages Not Indexed in Google Search Console

Intro: What is GSC and why use it?

Let’s talk about Google Search Console – a free tool from Google that helps you understand how your website is showing up in search.

It tells you things like:

• which pages are being indexed,
  
• what search terms people are using to find you,
  
• and whether Google is running into any issues when crawling your site.
  

It’s free, it’s powerful, and it gives you a direct line into how Google sees your site.

But… the data inside can sometimes look confusing or even a bit alarming. You might see things like ‘alternate page with canonical tag’ or ‘soft 404’ and wonder if something is broken.

So when a client reached out to me recently about her report and asked why her pages weren’t being indexed, I thought it would be useful to walk you through some of the most common reports you might see around pages not being indexed and explain what they actually mean in plain English.

If you’d prefer to watch me walk you through the steps, you can watch the video here:

Alternate Page with Proper Canonical Tag

First up: Alternate Page with Proper Canonical Tag.

What this means is that Google has found different versions of the same page – often with tracking codes at the end of the URL, like /?fbclid, or through blog pagination, like /page/2/.

But the important thing is: your site is telling Google which version is the ‘main’ one using a canonical tag. And Google is listening.

So although it looks like something’s wrong, it’s actually a sign that things are working exactly as they should.

Page with Redirect

Next, Page with Redirect.

This just means Google has found a URL that forwards to another page – for example, your Privacy Policy or Terms.

Google isn’t confused by this. It simply skips the redirect and indexes the page it leads to.

Again, totally normal, nothing to fix here.

Crawled – Currently Not Indexed

Third, Crawled – Currently Not Indexed.

This one looks scary because it sounds like Google has rejected your page. But most of the time, these are things like /feed/ URLs.

WordPress automatically creates RSS feeds for every post, which are meant for apps and subscribers — not for search results.

So Google crawls them, realises they’re not useful to show in search, and leaves them out.

That’s fine. What matters is that your actual blog posts without /feed/ are indexed.

Soft 404

Finally, Soft 404.

This happens when a page exists, but there’s nothing meaningful on it. A classic example is an empty author page – if there are no blog posts by that author, the page is blank.

Google treats that as a ‘not found’ page, even though technically it loads.

It’s not harming your site, but if you want to tidy it up, you can turn off author archives in your SEO plugin. That way the empty pages won’t exist at all.

404 (Page Not Found)

Another thing you might see in Search Console is a straightforward 404 — Page Not Found.

This is when Google tries to crawl a page that genuinely doesn’t exist anymore. It could happen because:

• you deleted or unpublished a page,
• you changed a URL without setting up a redirect,
• or sometimes Google just found a broken link somewhere on the internet.

The good news is: 404s are normal, and every site has them. A few here and there won’t hurt your SEO.

When do you need to take action?

• If the page was important and still has value, set up a 301 redirect to point it to the new or closest relevant page.
• If the page is gone for good, you can simply leave it as a 404. Google will eventually drop it from the index.

So, don’t panic when you see 404s – just check whether the missing page matters, and redirect it if it does.

Summary

So, to sum up:

Google Search Console is brilliant for giving you visibility into how your site is performing, but the way it labels things can sometimes feel alarming.

Most of the time, these reports are just informational. The real question is always: are my main pages being indexed? And if the answer is yes, you’re in good shape.

If you haven’t set up Google Search Console yet, I definitely recommend it – it’s free, and it gives you direct feedback from Google about your site. You can find some instructions on getting started with Google Search Console here on their site.