Your Website Isn't Getting Indexed? Check These SEO Fixes

One of the most, if not the most, critical aspects of a website is Search Engine Optimization (SEO). SEO issues are quite common and will prevent parts, if not all, of your website from being found. And for every SEO issue you have, each has its own fix. Whether you’re dealing with duplicate websites, canonical issues, or crawling issues, these problems will negatively impact how your site gets indexed.

As such, we’ve outlined our common sense approach to resolving these three indexing issues below.

Start with Your Webmaster Data

The first step in fixing indexing-related issues is to analyze search trends in Google Search Console, Bing Webmaster Tools, or similar tools. Although no single metric from these tools determines success, tracking your rank, impressions, and click-through rate can help you uncover issues. These tools also report reasons why certain pages aren’t being indexed, or if you have bigger problems, such as manual actions. Take note of other trends, such as search algorithm updates and how they impact your content. It may be that the industry is impacted like this February 2026 Google update. Therefore, you get familiar with using these tools.

How to Address Your SEO Issues

After you’ve identified indexing issues, you have two types of fixes: content and technical. Content fixes can take months to propagate and are important for organic growth. However, technical issues are more serious and should be addressed immediately because they prevent pages from beign indexed, which means you won’t see any improvements from content fixes.

With the above in mind, here are some of the most impactful yet common indexing problems we’ve seen and how you can fix them:

Issue	The Problem	The Fix	The Result
Duplicate Websites: The Silent SEO Killer	Your website may have duplicate versions floating around through a staging environment, subdomain, or IP-based environment. If search engines index multiple versions of your website, your SEO will be diluted across them. In Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, check for URLs in the “Top linking sites” and disable indexing on duplicate websites. You can also check your indexed pages to confirm whether one domain is indexed over another.	Apply a “noindex tag” to your staging site and/or subdomains to prevent them from being crawled and indexed. Use 301 Redirects to point your duplicate versions of your website to your primary business domain. This lets search engines know which domain to attribute SEO. Apply canonical URLs to notify search engines where your source content is	From our experience, fixing this issue alone can boost impressions by 150%+ within a few months.
Canonical URLs: Using Wrong Ones or Not Using Them at all	Google and other search engines assure us that their bots and algorithms can index websites correctly without external intervention. However, they do make plenty of mistakes, and without guidance, your SEO efforts might be lost or assigned to the wrong page/domain.	Manually apply the canonical URL to the pages you want to credit SEO for. This signals to Google and other search engines the correct URL for SEO attribution.	We’ve seen these canonical fixes realign indexing and improve search rank and monthly impressions by 100%+.
Crawling Errors: Are Your Most Important Pages Searchable?	Your customers might be able to find you by your company name. But can they find you by your products and/or services? By not indexing your product and service pages, you greatly reduce your chances of being found online for high-intent searches.	Below is how to resolve other common crawling issues. Just make sure to resubmit pages to search consoles after fixing them for reindexing: Redirect error: If you’ve changed domains, verify that the proper 301 redirects and canonical URLs are configured. Test your URLs to confirm that there are no redirect loops in play. Crawled – Currently Not Indexed: Depending on the root cause, the fix may involve updating, rewriting, or even killing content. Avoid overusing AI tools for content generation, as search engines are actively detecting them and flagging websites for spam abuse. Duplicate, Google Chose a Different Canonical: Review URL structures and ensure proper canonicalization. Page with Redirect: If a deprecated page has a valid redirect, no further action is needed. Otherwise, check your rules to ensure proper redirection. Excluded by ‘noindex’ Tag: If unintentional, remove the noindex tag and request for reindexing. Alternate Page With Proper Canonical tag: Confirm whether the alternate page is correct for SEO attribution. Blocked due to Other 4xx Issue: Look for routing issues affecting the URLs. Not Found (404): Do nothing if the page is removed. Otherwise, declare 301 redirects for pages that have permanently moved and 302 redirects for those that have temporarily moved. Discovered – Currently Not Indexed: This is usually content related, so if it’s been a while, you probably need to update the stale content or increase backlinks to these pages.	Proper indexing is the backbone of any SEO program. We’ve helped clients increase impressions by 300%+ in a matter of weeks just by resolving these indexing issues.

The Key Takeaway

Don’t ignore the basics: ensure your pages are properly indexed before you do anything else with your website.

The Bottom Line: Take Control of Your SEO

Your website’s success depends on search engines to index your content properly. Review your webmaster tools to diagnose and fix duplicate websites, canonical issues, and crawling issues.

At Uplancer, we’ve tackled SEO challenges across many industries. If you’re struggling with traffic and search rankings, don’t wait! Contact us today for a free consultation and take your website’s SEO to the next level.