How do I use the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console?
Indexing Issues
Paste the full address of a page into the inspection bar at the top of any Search Console screen, or click Inspect beside a URL in a report. The result shows what Google's index holds for that URL: whether it is on Google, how Google found it, when it was last crawled, which canonical Google chose and which enhancements it detected. Test live URL fetches the page as it is now, and Request indexing asks for a fresh crawl.
Reading the result
The top card gives one of four verdicts:
- URL is on Google: indexed and eligible to appear, though never guaranteed to show for a given search.
- URL is on Google, but has issues: indexed, with a problem in an enhancement such as structured data.
- URL is not on Google: not indexed; the crawl details usually explain why.
- URL is an alternate version: Google treats it as an alternate of another page, which is the one it indexes.
Expand the page indexing details for the evidence:
| Section | Fields | What to look for |
|---|---|---|
| Discovery | Sitemaps, Referring page | Whether a submitted sitemap lists the URL and which page led Google to it |
| Crawl | Last crawl, Crawled as, Crawl allowed?, Page fetch, Indexing allowed? | A robots.txt block, a failed fetch or a noindex |
| Indexing | User-declared canonical, Google-selected canonical | Whether Google agrees with the canonical you set |
Further down, the enhancements section lists rich results and other features found on the indexed page, although the tool doesn't cover every rich result type yet.
Indexed result or live test?
The default view describes Google's indexed copy, which may be days or weeks old. The live test fetches the page in real time, which is how you confirm a fix before asking for a recrawl.
| Indexed result | Live test | |
|---|---|---|
| Based on | Google's last crawl | A fetch made now |
| Sitemaps and referring page | Shown | Not checked |
| Duplicate and canonical decision | Shown | Not evaluated |
| Screenshot of the rendered page | No | Yes |
| HTML, HTTP response, JavaScript console, resources | View crawled page | View tested page |
A clean live test doesn't promise indexing. It ignores duplication, quality and security problems, manual actions and URLs you have temporarily removed (Google's URL Inspection help).
When to request indexing
Press Request indexing after publishing an important page or fixing one that was failing. It only queues a crawl: Google says crawling can take from a few days to a few weeks, that asking repeatedly won't make it faster, and that individual requests have a quota (Ask Google to recrawl your URLs). For many URLs, submit a sitemap instead. Requesting indexing has the details.
Limits worth knowing
- You can only inspect URLs inside the property you have open. For anyone else's page, the public Rich Results Test is the nearest alternative.
- Requesting indexing needs owner or full-user permission; restricted users can run the inspection but not the request.
- The interface takes one URL at a time. The URL Inspection API allows 2,000 inspections a day and 600 a minute for each site (API usage limits).
- The Google-selected canonical can lag the index by a few hours.
How AutoPSEO helps
Bulk URL inspection in AutoPSEO takes a pasted list, an uploaded file or a sitemap (up to 500 URLs a run), inspects them through the API within the same daily quota, and lists each URL's status, coverage state, last crawl and whether Google kept your canonical in a table you can export, with the full inspection a click away. For pages that matter, the Index Tracker inspects up to 1,800 tracked URLs on a daily schedule and alerts you when one leaves the index.
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