What is a good indexation rate?

A healthy indexation rate for a well-maintained site is above 90 percent. If less than 80 percent of your pages are indexed, investigate the excluded pages - they may have quality issues, duplicate content, or technical barriers preventing indexation. Sites with programmatic SEO pages often see lower rates because search engines are more selective about indexing templated content.

How do you check your indexation rate?

Use Google Search Console's Index Coverage report. It shows how many pages are indexed, excluded, and why they were excluded. Divide your indexed page count by total submitted pages to get your indexation rate. You can also use the site:yourdomain.com search operator in Google for a rough estimate.

Does indexation rate affect AI search visibility?

Indirectly yes. Pages that Google indexes are more likely to be discovered by AI crawlers as well, since AI models use web search results as a starting point for finding sources. A page that is not indexed by any search engine is harder for AI models to discover and cite.

Why are some pages not getting indexed?

Common reasons include thin or duplicate content, noindex meta tags, pages blocked by robots.txt, crawl budget limitations, slow server response, and low-quality signals. Google may also choose not to index pages it considers redundant or not useful enough to add to its index.

What Is Indexation Rate?

Indexation rate is the percentage of your website's pages that a search engine has crawled, evaluated, and added to its searchable index. If your site has 500 pages and Google has indexed 450 of them, your indexation rate is 90%. Only indexed pages can appear in search results - a page that exists on your server but is not in the index is effectively invisible to search users.

For startups publishing content at scale through programmatic SEO or aggressive content strategies, indexation rate is a critical health metric. It tells you whether the content you are producing is actually reaching the audiences you intend.

How Does Indexation Work?

Search engine indexation follows a three-step process:

Discovery. The crawler finds your page through sitemaps, internal links, external links, or direct crawling. This is where crawl budget comes into play - crawlers must discover the page before they can evaluate it.

Crawling. The crawler fetches the page content, renders JavaScript if needed, and processes the HTML, text, images, and structured data.

Indexation decision. The search engine evaluates whether the page adds enough value to be included in the index. Not every crawled page gets indexed. Google explicitly states that it does not guarantee indexation of every page it crawls - pages must meet quality thresholds.

This third step is where many startups lose pages. The content gets discovered and crawled, but the search engine decides it is not valuable enough to index. This is different from a technical barrier - the page is accessible but not deemed worthy.

How Do You Measure Indexation Rate?

Google Search Console is the primary tool. The Index Coverage report breaks down your pages into four categories:

Status	Meaning
Valid	Page is indexed and can appear in search results
Valid with warnings	Indexed but has issues worth fixing
Excluded	Not indexed - with a specific reason provided
Error	Could not be processed due to technical issues

Your indexation rate is: (Valid pages / Total submitted pages) x 100.

Site search operator provides a quick estimate. Search site:yourdomain.com in Google to see approximately how many pages are indexed. This is less precise than Search Console but useful for a fast check.

Why Do Pages Get Excluded from the Index?

Google provides specific exclusion reasons in Search Console. The most common ones for startups:

Discovered but not currently indexed. Google knows the page exists but has not crawled it yet or has deprioritized it. This often indicates crawl budget constraints or low perceived value.

Crawled but not currently indexed. Google crawled the page but decided not to add it to the index. This is a quality signal - the content may be too thin, too similar to existing indexed pages, or not providing enough unique value.

Duplicate without user-selected canonical. Google found duplicate content and chose a different page as the canonical version. This is common with URL parameter variations or pages with very similar content.

Blocked by robots.txt. The page is blocked in your robots.txt file. If you want the page indexed, update your robots.txt rules.

Noindex tag. The page has a noindex meta tag or HTTP header, explicitly telling search engines not to index it.

How Do You Improve Indexation Rate?

Improve content quality. The single biggest factor. Pages with unique, substantive content that answers real questions get indexed. Pages with thin, templated, or duplicate content get excluded. If your programmatic pages are being excluded, add more unique value to each page.

Strengthen internal linking. Pages with strong internal link signals are crawled and indexed more reliably. Link from your high-authority pages to pages you want indexed. A page that is orphaned - not linked from anywhere else on your site - is hard for crawlers to discover and signals low importance.

Submit an updated sitemap. Make sure your XML sitemap is accurate and only includes pages you want indexed. Submit it through Google Search Console and reference it in your robots.txt.

Fix technical barriers. Resolve crawl errors, remove unintentional noindex tags, and fix redirect chains. Technical barriers are the easiest indexation problems to fix because the solution is binary.

Increase content freshness. Regularly updated content gets re-crawled and re-evaluated more frequently. Add updated dates, refresh statistics, and expand content to signal ongoing value.

Indexation Rate and AI Search

Indexation by traditional search engines is an indirect but important factor for AI search visibility. AI models like ChatGPT and Perplexity often use web search results as a starting point for finding sources to cite. A page that is not indexed by Google is harder for these AI systems to discover.

Additionally, AI crawlers like GPTBot and PerplexityBot make their own indexation decisions. Pages that traditional search engines reject for quality reasons are unlikely to be cited by AI models either. High indexation rates across search engines correlate with higher AI visibility.

Monitor your indexation rate monthly. If it drops below 80%, investigate the excluded pages. The gap between what you publish and what gets indexed is the gap between effort and results - and closing it is one of the most tangible technical SEO improvements you can make.