Pages in Google

What it checks

Open Pages in Google in the left menu. Gralus asks Google about every page from the last site check, one by one, through Google's own URL Inspection in your Search Console connection. Google answers whether the page is in its index and, if not, why. Pages Google left out are asked about again every week, indexed pages every four weeks. Pages whose canonical tag points at another page, and pages hidden with noindex on purpose, are not asked about.

Google answers about 150 pages an hour per site and up to 2,000 a day, so a big site fills in over a few hours. “Check with Google again” asks about every page once more; it can be used every 6 hours. Needs Search Console connected.

The reasons, and what to do

Pages are grouped by Google's reason, each with what it means and what to do:

• Google has never seen it, or knows it but hasn't visited yet: no page links to it, or Google doesn't think it matters yet. Links from pages Google already reads fix this most reliably.
• Google read it but left it out: the page looks thin, too close to another page, or unimportant. Add useful text, make it different from similar pages, and link to it.
• Treated as a copy: Google indexed another page instead. Make it different, or point its canonical tag at the page you want shown.
• Hidden by noindex, blocked by robots.txt, not allowed in (401/403), server error, or "not found": a setting or the server stops Google. The fix is in WordPress, the SEO plugin or the hosting.
• Points to another page: the page's canonical tag or a redirect sends Google elsewhere. Usually intended.

Each page has a link to the same page in Search Console, where you can press Request indexing after fixing it.

Links to left-out pages

“Find links to these pages” asks the Gralus plugin to find where other posts and pages already mention a left-out page's topic (its heading, title and the searches it shows for) and suggests a link there. The links wait in Approvals as one fix; after approval the plugin adds them, and Undo removes exactly those links. When morning drafts are on, Gralus does this by itself once a week after the check. Needs plugin 0.11.0 or newer.