How to Fix “Crawled – Currently Not Indexed” Pages in Google Search Console

If you’ve checked Google Search Console recently and noticed more of your pages appearing under “Crawled – currently not indexed”, you’re not imagining things.

From around March/April this year, I started noticing this happen across many different websites.

After almost 20 years working in SEO, it feels like something significant has shifted.

Google is becoming far more selective about what it chooses to keep in its index.

A few years ago, you could often fix indexing issues with technical improvements alone. Strengthen internal linking, tidy up canonicals, resubmit the URL, and many pages would eventually get indexed.

That’s no longer enough.

Google now seems to be assessing whether a page is genuinely useful, original, and worthy of taking up space in the search results.

At the recent Google Search Central event in Toronto, Google representatives discussed “Crawled – currently not indexed” pages and explained that while technical issues can still play a role, sometimes Google simply looks at a page and decides:

“This isn’t good enough to include.”

That lines up with what myself and many other SEOs have been seeing for a while now. It also connects closely to another phrase being discussed more frequently: ‘commodity content’.

Commodity Content

Commodity content is content that is technically “fine” but easily replaceable.

It says the same things as hundreds of other pages online.

– It doesn’t add anything new.
– It doesn’t show real experience.
– It doesn’t help the user in a more meaningful way than existing content already does.

And in 2026, Google appears less interested in indexing it.

Quick check: If your page disappeared tomorrow could users find virtually identical information elsewhere within seconds? If they can Google may decide it simply doesn’t need to keep your version indexed.

This is particularly important now because AI tools have made it incredibly easy for businesses to produce large amounts of content very quickly.

The problem is that much of it sounds the same.

– It follows the same structure.
– Uses the same phrases.
– Answers the same questions.
– Offers the same generic advice.

And Google already has millions of pages like that.

After spending time digging into indexing patterns across different websites this year, I believe this is one of the main reasons so many businesses are seeing growing numbers of “Crawled – currently not indexed” pages in Search Console.

The bar for indexing has become much higher.

Creating content that goes beyond commodity-level information is becoming more important, and Google outlines how to approach this in its AI content optimisation documentation.

What does “Crawled – Currently Not Indexed” Mean?

This status in Google Search Console means Google has discovered and crawled the URL, but has chosen not to add it to the search index.

That distinction matters.

This is different from a page being blocked by robots.txt or marked as noindex.

Google can access the page perfectly fine.

It’s simply decided that the page doesn’t deserve visibility in search results.

Sometimes this is temporary. Google may index the page later.

But often, especially if pages stay in this report for weeks or months, Google has assessed the page and decided it offers limited value compared to other content already available online.

Many business owners assume indexing is automatic once a page exists, but, it isn’t anymore.

Google cannot realistically index every page on the internet because there is too much content being produced every day. So Google has to make decisions about what deserves to be stored, processed, and surfaced in search results.

And that means filtering out pages that feel repetitive, thin, generic, or unhelpful.

Why This Is Happening More Often Now

Over the years, SEO has unintentionally trained businesses to create huge amounts of similar content.

Businesses were told to:

• Publish more blogs.
• Target more keywords.
• Create separate pages for every variation.
• Add more location pages.
• Answer every question imaginable.

The result was that the internet became flooded with near-identical content.

Now Google appears to be correcting for that.

The focus has shifted away from matching keywords and toward understanding whether a page genuinely contributes something useful or original.

This is where ideas like “information gain” become important.

Google seems more and more interested in content that adds something to the conversation rather than simply repeating what already exists.

That doesn’t mean every page needs groundbreaking research or a controversial opinion.

But it does mean pages need more depth, more originality, more experience, and more usefulness than many websites currently provide.

A Simple Exercise

Recently, Marie Haynes shared a useful exercise following the Google Search Central event, and I recommend trying it.

Go into Google Search Console → Indexing → Pages → and click “Crawled – currently not indexed.”

You’ll likely see a mix of pages here. Some exclusions are totally normal (think: feed URLs, pagination, or non-canonical variations like trailing slash duplicates).

But focus on the URLs you do want indexed.

Open one in Chrome, then use Gemini in the sidebar and ask:

“Is this commodity content? Is it likely that many other pages already cover this in a similar way?”

If the answer is yes, follow it with:

“How could this be improved so it becomes uniquely valuable and worthy of indexing?”

I’ve tested this myself on older blog posts and some of the responses were surprisingly revealing.

Not because AI suddenly understands SEO better than experienced SEOs do, but because sometimes it helps expose patterns we stop noticing in our own writing.

Many pages that feel “fine” are actually very generic when viewed objectively.

And that’s important to know.

The Biggest Mistake I Still See Businesses Making

Most businesses are still creating content primarily for search engines rather than for people.

Even now, many pages are built around keywords first and usefulness second.

You can usually spot these pages immediately because they tend to:

– Repeat obvious information.
– Use vague, generic language.
– Avoid saying anything specific.
– Offer no real-world insight.
– Sound interchangeable with competitor pages.

The irony is that in trying to “do SEO,” businesses often create the exact kind of content Google is less interested in indexing.

The websites performing best in 2026 are not the ones publishing the highest volume of content.

They are the ones publishing content that feels genuinely useful, specific, experience-led, and human. If you follow me on LinkedIn, you’ll know I talk about this topic a lot.

What Helps Pages Get Indexed Now

One of the most effective things you can do is add genuine experience to your content because that’s the type of content that stands out – both to users and increasingly to search systems.

And this is where businesses have an advantage over AI-generated content and generic SEO copywriting.

– Fresh expertise.
– Real examples.
– Original insight.
– Commercial nuance.
– Case studies.
– Strong opinions.
– Edge cases.
– Things only somebody doing the work would know.

Most websites barely use any of this.

Instead, they produce safe, surface-level content that could apply to almost any business in the industry.

But when you start adding actual experience, pages become far more distinctive.

For example, instead of writing:

“Physiotherapy can help relieve shoulder pain.”

You might explain:

• The most common shoulder issues you personally see.
• Why shoulder pain is often misdiagnosed.
• Why some exercises make shoulder pain worse.
• What patients often misunderstand.
• How recovery differs depending on the cause.
• What typically delays improvement.

That help to create depth and creates originality.

And importantly, it creates information users are less likely to find copied across hundreds of other pages.

I’m seeing the impact of this approach firsthand across multiple clients.

For years now, I’ve been encouraging clients to move away from generic SEO copy and instead focus on genuinely useful, experience-led content that actually helps their audience.

One of my London physiotherapy clients is a great example of this. By consistently creating in-depth content based on real patient questions, clinical experience and practical insights, the website has generated so much visibility and relevant business growth that they’re now preparing to open a second clinic.

Technical SEO Still Matters

I do want to stress that technical SEO still matters.

If Google cannot properly crawl, render, or understand your pages, indexing problems will absolutely happen.

You should still check for issues such as:

• incorrect canonical tags.
• accidental noindex directives.
• redirect problems.
• poor page speed.
• mobile usability issues.
• weak internal linking.
• duplicate URLs.
• crawl errors.

But what I’m now seeing is websites with technically solid SEO still struggling to get pages indexed because the underlying content simply isn’t strong enough.

And that’s the key change many websites are now running into.

Good technical SEO helps Google access your content.

But technical SEO alone no longer guarantees Google wants to keep that content in its index.

Internal Linking Is More Important Than Many People Realise

One of the simplest ways to signal importance to Google is through strong internal linking.

Yet many websites still publish pages and effectively abandon them.

A blog post gets published, linked once on social media, and then disappears into the archive forever.

From Google’s perspective, that sends a signal that the page probably is not very important.

Internal links help search engines understand:

• which pages matter most.
• how topics connect together.
• which pages demonstrate authority.
• where users are likely to find value.

The strongest websites usually have very deliberate internal linking structures.

Their content works together.

Pages support one another.

Topics build naturally over time.

This is one reason topical authority has become so important in modern SEO.

Sometimes the Best SEO Strategy Is Publishing Less

For a long time, SEO advice focused heavily on publishing more content.

– More blogs.
– More pages.
– More keywords.

But now many businesses would see better results by publishing less content and investing more effort into making each page genuinely valuable.

I’d rather see a website with 20 genuinely excellent pages than 200 average ones, because increasingly, average content struggles to earn visibility.

And large amounts of mediocre content can sometimes lower the perceived quality of an entire website.

Not Every Non-Indexed Page Is a Problem

This is important because I don’t want businesses panicking every time they see excluded pages in Search Console.

Some pages genuinely do not need indexing.

Things like pagination, filter URLs, duplicate parameters, staging pages, and certain archive pages are often perfectly fine to leave out of Google’s index.

The goal is not 100% indexation.

The goal is making sure your important pages are strong enough to deserve indexing.

That’s a very different approach to SEO than many businesses have been taught in the past.

My Final Thoughts

“Crawled – currently not indexed” is no longer just a technical SEO report.

It’s becoming a reflection of overall content quality and usefulness.

Google has set a new benchmark for what deserves visibility in search results, especially now that the internet is flooded with mass-produced, repetitive content.

The businesses most likely to succeed moving forward are the ones willing to create content that goes beyond surface-level SEO copy.

– Content with original experience and expertise.
– Content with depth, real examples and insight.
– Content with perspective.
– Content that genuinely helps.

Simply creating content is not enough. Your content needs to earn its place in Google’s index.

Need help improving your website content and indexing?

If your important pages are stuck in “Crawled – currently not indexed,” I can help you identify what’s holding them back and what needs to change to improve their quality, structure and overall performance.

In many cases, it’s not just a technical fix – it’s about strengthening the content so it genuinely deserves to be indexed and visible in search.

Whether you need a full SEO audit, support improving existing content, or a long-term SEO strategy, I’ll help you create a website that attracts the right visitors and earns sustainable visibility in Google.

If you’d like to chat, get in touch here and we’ll take a look at what’s going on and how to move things forward.

This article has been updated for 2026.