Audit: Indexing Issues and What They Mean
The 'Indexability' category answers a single question: will the page appear in search. Here are all five audit errors out of nine — if the page is unavailable or closed, the other remarks about it make no sense.
Errors: Fix First
| Code in Report | What Happened | What to Do |
|---|---|---|
| Page returns 4xx | The address does not exist, but there are links to it | Restore the page or set a 301 to the current address and remove the links |
| Server Error 5xx | The server could not deliver the page | Check the logs: usually it's a database issue, limits, or a code error |
| Page Unavailable | Timeout or connection drop | Check the stability of the hosting and response time |
| Redirect Loop | The address redirects to itself in a loop | Break the chain: usually a conflict of www/https rules and CMS |
| Multiple Canonicals | There are two or more canonical addresses on the page | Keep one — otherwise, search will choose one itself |
Warnings
- Page Closed with Noindex — sometimes intentionally, but more often it's a forgotten restriction after development. Check if this page is really not needed in search.
- Closed in robots.txt — the robot will not crawl the page. Remember: this is not the same as removal from the index, see analysis of three directives.
- Redirect Chain — more than one step: speed and some weight are lost.
- Meta Refresh — an outdated method of redirection, search understands it worse than a regular redirect.
- Hreflang without Self-Reference — language version markup does not work, see hreflang check.
Remarks
No Canonical and Canonical to Another Address — the second is especially insidious: the page is excluded from the index in favor of the specified one. Internal Redirect — links within the site lead to an address that redirects; it's better to link directly to the final one. Access Restricted — hosting protection has blocked our crawler: the page is likely working, but check manually. Sitemap.xml Not Found — see sitemap check.
How to Check a Specific Page
The audit shows the picture for the site, but for a single page, it's faster to use indexing checker and response headers — the restriction may be returned by the server, and it's not visible in the page code.