How do I check if Google has indexed my site?

The quick check: a site: search

Type site:yourdomain.ca into Google. You’ll see a sample of the pages Google has in its index. Add a path to check a section, like site:yourdomain.ca/services.

It’s useful as a sanity check, but it isn’t precise. The result count is an estimate, and a page can be indexed without appearing in a site: search. If your homepage doesn’t appear at all, though, that’s a strong sign something is wrong.

The accurate check: Search Console

Google Search Console is free and shows what Google actually thinks. Paste any URL into the URL Inspection bar at the top. It reports whether the page is on Google, when it was last crawled, which canonical Google chose, and whether it’s mobile-friendly.

If it isn’t indexed, you’ll see why, and you can click “Request indexing” once you’ve fixed the cause. The Pages report then gives the whole picture: how many URLs are indexed and how many are excluded, grouped by reason.

What the common “not indexed” reasons mean

• Excluded by noindex tag: the page asks not to be indexed. Remove the noindex if that was a mistake.
• Blocked by robots.txt: Google isn’t allowed to crawl it. Check your robots.txt.
• Duplicate, Google chose different canonical: Google sees it as a copy of another page.
• Crawled, currently not indexed: Google looked and decided it wasn’t worth indexing yet, often because it’s thin.
• Discovered, currently not indexed: Google knows the URL but hasn’t crawled it. Internal links and a sitemap help.

For any client site, the first thing I set up after launch is Search Console with the sitemap submitted. A week or two later I open the Pages report and compare the indexed count with the number of pages that should exist.

If they don’t match, I sort the excluded list by reason. Redirects and deliberate noindex pages are fine. “Crawled, currently not indexed” on a real service page tells me that page needs more substance or better internal links, so that’s where I spend the effort.