How many of your pages does Google actually show?

A page Google has not indexed cannot be found in Google. That sounds obvious, and yet most site owners have never compared how many pages they have with how many Google shows. It takes about five minutes, and you need nothing you do not already have.

Step 1: count what you have

Open yoursite.com/sitemap.xml in a browser. If nothing is there, try /sitemap_index.xml, or open /robots.txt, which often names the sitemap on a line starting Sitemap:. Count the pages listed. A sitemap index links to several smaller sitemaps; add those up.

No sitemap at all is not a disaster for a small site, but it is worth fixing. Most website platforms can generate one for you.

Step 2: a rough count from Google

Search Google for site:yoursite.com. The results are pages Google has in its index for your domain. Scroll through them. Are your service pages there? Your contact page? Or mostly old posts and tag pages?

This is a rough guide and nothing more. Google's own documentation says a site:search "doesn't necessarily return all the URLs that are indexed". If it shows 8 pages and your sitemap lists 80, that is worth the next step. If the numbers are close, you can probably stop here.

Step 3: the real number, in Search Console

Google Search Console is free, and it is the only place Google tells you directly which of your pages are indexed and why the others are not. Add your site, submit your sitemap under Sitemaps, then open Pages under Indexing. It splits your pages into indexed and not indexed, with a reason for each.

If you have only just added the site, give it a few days. The report fills in as Google crawls.

Reading the reasons

Not every page should be indexed, and Google says so: "You should not expect all URLs on your site to be indexed, only the canonical pages." Some of the reasons are fine. Some are not.

Usually fine:

• Alternate page with proper canonical tag. A duplicate that correctly points Google at the main version.
• Page with redirect. An old address that forwards to a new one.

Worth a look:

• URL marked 'noindex'.The page asks not to be indexed. Fine for a thank-you page, a real problem on a service page. A common cause is a site launched with a setting like WordPress's "Discourage search engines from indexing this site" still ticked.
• Crawled - currently not indexed. Google read the page and chose not to include it. Often the page is thin, or too similar to another page on the site.
• Discovered - currently not indexed. Google knows the page exists and has not got round to reading it yet.
• Duplicate, Google chose different canonical than user. You said one page is the main version and Google picked another.
• Not found (404) and Server error (5xx). Pages that are broken when Google visits.

What to do about it

Start with the pages that bring you business: your services, your locations, your contact page. For each one, paste its address into the search bar at the top of Search Console. The URL Inspection tool tells you whether that page is indexed and why not, and lets you ask Google to index it once it is fixed.

If you would rather not do this yourself, the free Search Snapshot runs the first two steps for you and shows both numbers side by side.