The Google Search Console Pages report (previously called the Coverage report) is a plain-language list of every URL Google tried to crawl and why some failed. Reading it correctly takes 5 minutes. Fixing what it shows takes longer — but only the errors that actually matter for your site’s SEO.
This guide covers every error type in the “Not indexed” tab, what causes each, and the specific fix.
Where to Find the Report
GSC left sidebar → Indexing → Pages → click the “Not indexed” tab.
The report groups URLs by reason. Click any reason to expand the list of affected URLs and get a sample of up to 1,000. You can export the full list if needed.
Note: The old “Coverage” report was renamed to “Pages” (or Page Indexing) in 2022/2023. The data is the same — only the name changed.
Error Type Reference
404 Not Found
What it means: Googlebot tried to fetch the URL and the server returned HTTP 404 — the page doesn’t exist.
When to fix it: Only when the missing page had rankings, backlinks, or meaningful traffic. Check GSC → Links → External links to see whether any domains link to the 404 URL. If yes, a 301 redirect recovers the link equity. If no external links and no prior rankings, leave the 404. Empty 404s cost almost nothing in SEO terms.
What not to do: Don’t create thin, content-free placeholder pages just to clear the error count. A thin 200-status page is often worse than a clean 404.
The fix: In your CMS, .htaccess, or redirect manager, set a 301 redirect from the old URL to the most relevant existing page. If no relevant page exists, redirect to the closest category or the homepage — not to a generic /404 page.
Soft 404
What it means: Your server returned HTTP 200 OK — meaning “this page exists” — but the page’s content signals the opposite. Common examples: empty category pages, out-of-stock product pages with no description, search results pages with “no items found,” and blank pages generated by CMS templates.
Google detects soft 404s by evaluating content, not status codes. A page that says “No products match your search” with 50 words of text reads as a 404 to Google’s quality systems, regardless of the HTTP status.
The fix depends on the page’s purpose:
- Page will never have content → Change the HTTP status to 410 (Gone) or 404. Remove from sitemap.
- Page should have content but currently doesn’t → Add genuine content. A category page with no products still benefits from a description paragraph, related links, and context.
- Faceted navigation or parameter URL (e.g.,
/products?color=red&sort=price) → Block these patterns via robots.txt or the URL Parameters feature in GSC to prevent thin parameter variants from consuming crawl quota. - Search result page → Add
noindexto your site’s internal search results template.
Redirect Error
What it means: Googlebot followed a redirect and either hit a loop (A→B→A) or a chain too long to complete (A→B→C→D→E… exceeding Google’s hop limit, typically around 5 redirects). Google gives up and reports the original URL as failed.
Redirect chain (A→B→C): Each hop is slightly wasteful for crawl budget. More practically, if you later remove B, the chain breaks. The fix is to update all sources pointing at A to go directly to C.
Redirect loop (A→B→A or A→A): Googlebot can’t resolve the URL. Usually caused by a misconfigured CMS redirect rule, a conflicting plugin, or an .htaccess entry that wasn’t fully cleaned up. Trace the specific redirect rules and remove the cycle.
Detection tools:
- Screaming Frog: Response Codes → filter by Redirects → look for chains > 1 hop or loops
- httpstatus.io: paste any URL to trace the full redirect chain with status codes
- GSC Pages report: “Redirect error” entries identify loop/chain failures
Server Error (5xx)
What it means: Googlebot attempted to fetch the URL but your server returned a 5xx error — typically 500 (Internal Server Error), 502 (Bad Gateway), or 503 (Service Unavailable). Googlebot couldn’t retrieve the page.
What to do: Check your server error logs for the specific error and timestamp. Common causes include server overload during Googlebot’s crawl window, a PHP or application exception, or a temporarily unavailable service (database, CDN).
Google retries 5xx URLs automatically — once the server issue is resolved, the errors disappear from the report on their own. If you see consistent 5xx errors across many URLs, investigate hosting capacity, server response times, and application stability rather than making changes in GSC.
Crawled — Currently Not Indexed
What it means: Google successfully fetched and processed the page but decided not to include it in the index. This is a quality judgment, not a technical error. Common reasons: thin content, duplicate of a page already indexed, content that’s too generic to compete for any queries, or a page Google assessed as low-value for users.
This is the most important category to investigate — it’s Google telling you, page by page, which URLs it doesn’t consider worth surfacing to searchers.
The fix: Evaluate each affected URL honestly. Is the page substantively useful? Does it contain original information a searcher would want? If not, consider:
- Consolidating it into a stronger, more comprehensive page
- Adding genuine depth (specific data, examples, original analysis)
- Applying
noindexif the page serves an internal purpose but isn’t search-relevant - Letting it stay as-is and checking again in 60–90 days after content improvements
Discovered — Currently Not Indexed
What it means: Google found the URL (via sitemap or a link) but hasn’t crawled it yet. This is a queue issue, not an error — Google will eventually crawl these. On high-authority sites with regular publishing, new pages typically move from Discovered to Indexed within days. On lower-authority sites or during a Google crawl queue backlog, it can take weeks.
What to do: If the pages are important and have been waiting more than 3–4 weeks, use the URL Inspection tool to “Request Indexing” for individual priority URLs. For bulk pages, verify your sitemap is clean (only indexable, canonical URLs) and submit it via GSC → Sitemaps. There’s no reliable way to force Google to crawl faster — the request indexing button is a nudge, not a guarantee.
TL;DR — Crawl Error Fix Reference
| Error type | HTTP status | Core fix |
|---|---|---|
| 404 Not Found | 404 | 301 redirect if link equity exists; leave 404 if not |
| Soft 404 | 200 (but thin) | Add content, return real 404/410, or noindex |
| Redirect error | Varies | Break chain; go directly to final URL |
| Server error | 5xx | Fix server/application; GSC auto-retries |
| Crawled — not indexed | 200 | Improve content quality or consolidate |
| Discovered — not indexed | Not crawled yet | Request indexing for priority URLs; audit sitemap |
When Crawl Errors Are (and Aren’t) an Emergency
For a typical small business site with under 10,000 pages, crawl errors in GSC are a cleanup task, not a crisis. Google crawls these sites comprehensively regardless of a few 404s or soft 404s. Fixing them is good practice — broken redirects waste crawl quota, and large numbers of soft 404s signal content quality issues — but a site with 40 crawl errors and strong content will outrank a technically pristine site with weak content.
Where crawl errors become a genuine SEO concern:
- Broken 404s with backlinks — you’re hemorrhaging link equity that should point to live content
- Large volumes of soft 404s — often a symptom of faceted navigation or template issues generating thousands of thin parameter pages, which competes with real pages for crawl attention
- Redirect chains on high-traffic pages — each unnecessary hop is a crawl efficiency cost and a potential single-point-of-failure
If you want a full technical audit — not just crawl errors but schema, speed, mobile, and AI-readiness signals — the SEOPulse free audit tool covers all of these in a single scan. For the full GSC workflow, see the 10 GSC reports small business owners should check weekly.