The URL Inspection Tool in Search Console: Reading the Result

This guide is based on Google's Search Console Help article on the URL Inspection tool, Search Central's page on asking Google to recrawl your URLs, and the Search Console API reference for URL inspection and its usage limits, checked on 9 November 2026. Where we give our own advice, we say so.

Opening the tool

URL Inspection looks at one URL at a time. There are two ways in: type the full URL into the inspection bar at the top of any Search Console screen, or click the Inspect link next to a URL in most reports (sometimes it only appears when you hover over the URL).

The URL must belong to the property you have open. For a page on a site you do not own, Google points you to its public tests instead, such as the Rich Results Test. If you have not set up a property yet, start with our Search Console guide for business owners.

URL Inspection is for single pages. To see indexing across the whole site, use the Page indexing report, which also explains what each "not indexed" reason means. This guide does not repeat that list.

Indexed result or live test

The first screen you see is not a test of the page as it is now. Google's wording: "This is not a live test. The results shown are from most recently indexed version of a page". Click Test live URL to fetch the current page, and switch between the two views with the Google Index and Live Test tabs.

	Indexed result (default)	Live test
What it shows	The version Google last crawled and indexed	The page fetched in real time
Sitemaps and referring page	Shown	Not checked
Google-selected canonical	Shown	Not predicted: canonical choice is made at indexing time
Video	Whether a video is indexed	Only whether a video is detected
Redirects	Reports on the URL you entered	Follows redirects and tests the target, without saying so
Screenshot	Not available	Available if the test succeeds

Both views have a daily limit per property. The Help article does not give the number.

Reading the indexed result

The top of the result gives one of these verdicts:

• URL is on Google. The page is indexed and can appear in results. Google stresses that this "doesn't guarantee that your page is appearing in Search results", because the tool does not check every requirement. For a definitive answer, search for the URL on Google.
• URL is on Google, but has issues. Indexed, but something such as malformed structured data or a problem with a linked AMP page may stop it showing with all its enhancements.
• URL is not on Google. The page will not appear in results. The reason is in the Page indexing section.
• URL is an alternate version. An AMP page that is the alternate of a non-AMP canonical page. Usually nothing to do.

Expand Page indexing for the details. It is split into three parts:

Discovery

Sitemaps lists only sitemaps submitted in the Sitemaps report or listed in robots.txt; sitemaps Google found another way are not shown. Referring page is a page Google possibly used to find the URL, which may link to it directly or several steps away. If it is empty, that does not mean no page links to yours. Our guide to robots.txt and XML sitemaps covers getting pages into a sitemap.

Crawl

• Last crawl, in your local time. Everything in the indexed result comes from that crawl, so a change you made afterwards is not reflected yet.
• Crawled as: the desktop or mobile crawler.
• Crawl allowed?: whether robots.txt blocks Google.
• Page fetch: whether Google could get the page from your server. A fetch can succeed even when the page is not indexed for another reason.
• Indexing allowed?: whether a noindex tag or header blocks indexing. One trap: if robots.txt blocks the page, this field always says "Yes", because Google cannot see the noindex. Such a page "might appear in Search results even if indexing is blocked by your site."

Indexing

User-declared canonical is the canonical URL your page declares; "None" is fine for a page that has no duplicates. Google-selected canonical is the URL Google chose from a set of similar pages, which may not be the one you declared. Google notes this value "can be a few hours out of date". If the page redirects, the result describes the URL you entered, not the redirect target; use the Inspect button in the Indexing section to check the target. Our guide to 404 pages and redirects covers when to redirect.

What the live test checks, and what it does not

The live test fetches the page now. The page does not need to be indexed yet, but it must be reachable on the internet without a login. Use it after a fix, to see whether Google can now crawl and parse the page. Its verdicts are URL is available to Google, URL is available to Google, but has issues and URL is not available to Google.

A good live result is not a promise of indexing. Google answers that question directly: "There is no definitive test that can guarantee whether your page will be included in the Google index." The live test does not check:

• quality and security guidelines, manual actions, content removals or URLs temporarily blocked in Search Console (see our guides to security issues and the Removals tool);
• whether the page is a duplicate, or which canonical Google will choose;
• whether the URL is in a sitemap or has referring pages;
• statuses from the Page indexing report such as Crawled - currently not indexed, Discovered - currently not indexed and Page indexed without content.

If the live test reports a site-wide issue, the Page fetch field names it: DNS errors, server connection errors, an invalid SSL certificate, an unreachable robots.txt file, or "Hostload exceeded" when your site seems to be at maximum capacity for Google's requests. Google adds that server errors can be transient, so a live test can fail where crawling succeeded, or the other way round. Our guide to Crawl Stats shows how Googlebot's visits have gone over time.

Screenshot, HTML and loaded resources

Click View tested page in a live test (or View crawled page in the indexed result) to see the HTML Google received, the HTTP response headers, JavaScript console messages and the resources the page loaded. In the indexed view, this extra data exists only when the status is URL is on Google, with or without issues.

The Screenshot tab is the easiest way to see the page the way Google renders it. It is available "only in a live test with a successful test result", never for the indexed version. If parts of the page are missing, Google says differences "might be the result of resources that are blocked to the Google-InspectionTool". Our suggestion: if something is missing, check the loaded resources list for files that failed or were blocked, and whether that content only appears after a click.

Structured data, video and AMP

The Enhancements section lists rich result types found on the page (Breadcrumb, FAQ, Product snippet, Review snippet, Event and others) with the number of valid items and any errors or warnings. Not every type is supported by the tool: Google says unsupported types "might be present and valid on the page" but won't appear here. To edit and re-test markup, Google points to the Rich Results Test. Our structured data guide covers which markup is worth adding.

A Video indexing section appears only when a video is detected. Google indexes at most one video per watch page, and a video that is supplementary to the text, such as on a blog post or product page, is reported as "Video isn't on a watch page". Our guide to video on business websites covers what that means for embedding, and our Video indexing report guide goes through every reason Google gives. AMP pages get their own section when the page is or links to an AMP version.

Request indexing

After inspecting a URL you can click Request indexing. The page gets a quick check for immediate indexing errors and, if it passes, goes into Google's crawl queue. What Google says about it:

• You need to be an owner or full user of the property to request indexing.
• You cannot request indexing if the live test finds the page non-indexable.
• There is a daily limit, and "requesting a recrawl multiple times for the same URL won't get it crawled any faster."
• Timing varies. The Help article says indexing "typically takes only a day or so, but can take much longer" and can take "up to a week or two"; Search Central says crawling "can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks."
• A request does not guarantee the page will be indexed.

For many new or updated pages, Google's advice is a sitemap "with the updated pages marked by <lastmod>" rather than one request per URL. Search Central also notes that hosted platforms such as WordPress usually submit new content automatically. Our suggestion: keep Request indexing for a handful of important pages, for example a new service page or a page where a noindex tag was removed by mistake.

The URL Inspection API

Search Console's API has a URL Inspection method, useful when you want to check many pages from a script or a reporting tool. Two things to know:

• It covers the indexed version only. The reference says "you cannot test the indexability of a live URL." The method returns the inspection result; it is not a way to request indexing.
• It returns the same fields as the indexed view: verdict, coverage state, robots.txt state, indexing state, last crawl time, page fetch state, Google and user canonicals, crawler type, sitemaps and referring URLs, plus AMP and rich results when present.

The published limits for URL inspection are 2,000 queries per day and 600 per minute per site, and 10,000,000 per day and 15,000 per minute per project. A URL-prefix property is addressed with a trailing slash (https://www.example.com/), a Domain property as sc-domain:example.com.

A routine after changing a page

This is our suggestion, built on the steps above:

1. Inspect the URL and note the last crawl date and the Google-selected canonical.
2. Run the live test. Check Crawl allowed, Indexing allowed and the screenshot.
3. If the live test passes and the page matters, request indexing once.
4. If you fixed an issue that affects many pages, use Validate fix in the Page indexing report instead, and keep the sitemap's lastmod dates accurate.
5. Inspect again after a few days and compare the last crawl date.

A page that keeps saying "URL is on Google" but gets no impressions is a content or ranking question rather than an indexing one; our SEO basics guide is the place to start.

Frequently asked questions

Why does URL Inspection show an old version of my page?

The default view is Google's indexed version, from the last crawl date shown in the result. Click Test live URL to check the page as it is now.

Does "URL is on Google" mean my page ranks?

No. Google says it means the page is eligible to appear but is not guaranteed to be there. To check, search for the exact URL on Google.

The live test passed. Why is the page still not indexed?

The live test does not check duplicates, canonical choice, quality, manual actions or removals. Google also says no test can guarantee that a page will be indexed.

How many times can I request indexing?

There is a daily limit per property; the Help article does not give the number. Requesting the same URL again does not speed it up. For many pages, submit a sitemap with lastmod dates.

Why is there no screenshot?

Screenshots exist only in a live test that succeeds. The indexed result never has one, and a failed fetch does not produce one.

Want a website that Google can crawl and index cleanly from launch? See our website development and website maintenance services and all our services, or email [email protected].