Status “Discovered, but not indexed” may have a permanent nature

A relatively recent video meeting for Google webmasters was organized and conducted. During the event, Google Search representative John Mueller commented on the most relevant and significant changes related to search engine optimization. The SEO expert made several important statements, one of which concerns the status “Discovered, but not indexed”. Responding to a question from one of the meeting participants about how long a page can remain unindexed, the specialist noted that over time this status might not change at all.

Importance of the specified check status

In Google’s site indexing summary, under the “Status” section, it says: “If a page is given the status “Discovered, but not indexed,” it indicates that the URL was noticed by the system but not added to the Google index. This situation occurs when the search engine robot postpones the site scanning process indefinitely due to resource overload at the moment”.

What factors cause the status “Discovered, but not indexed”?

The main reasons for displaying the status “Discovered, but not indexed” lie in the technical aspect. As mentioned earlier, with the excessive load of resources, Google automatically shifts the scanning date to a later period.

Among other reasons, it is also worth noting the insufficient quality of the site “according to the opinion” of the search engine. Despite Google being one of the most powerful cloud-computing corporations in the world, the company’s resources are still not all-encompassing. That is why Google Search is more focused on liquid, highly relevant web pages, the content of which is well-received by the audience.

Based on these factors, some URLs may be permanently assigned the status “Discovered, but not indexed”.

Mueller comments on this thesis as follows: “The situation where a page remains unscanned and unindexed is quite normal, as not every page comes into the system’s focus”.

The analyst also added that in the case of newly created but large web resources, it is more likely that part of the content will remain discovered, not indexed. The scanning and indexing of the material by Google’s base will only occur when the search engine perceives the content’s value, but this may not happen eventually.

What to do if the page has received such a status?

Mueller says that letting things take their course is unnecessary. It’s better to adopt a conscious movement tactic, continue to modernize the site, particularly enhancing the quality of its content. Additionally, remember that John Mueller, during the briefing, provided statistics according to which about 20% of web resources are not subject to indexing.