Indexation
Indexation is whether a search engine has stored your page and is willing to show it. A page must be indexed before it can rank for anything.
After a crawler reads a page, the engine decides whether to keep it. A noindex header, a canonical pointing elsewhere, or thin content can all keep a page out of the index.
Check the page directly in Search Console. You can also inspect the response header sent to a crawler.
A practical example
A service page returns 200 and is linked from the menu, but carries a noindex directive.
A common mistake
Assuming a successful HTTP response proves a page is indexed.
How to check it
Check meta robots and X-Robots-Tag, then compare the live test with the indexed result in URL Inspection.
Related terms
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