# What is Indexing?

> Indexing is Google storing a copy of your web page in its database so it can appear in search results; a page that is not indexed cannot show up at all.

- Source: https://nerdsharks.com/glossary/indexing
- Publisher: Nerdsharks (Exeter, Devon, UK)
- Updated: 2026-09-26

Also called: indexation, Google index, noindex.

Google keeps an enormous catalogue of web pages, called its index. When it visits a page and decides it is worth keeping, it adds it to the index. Only indexed pages can appear in search results.

Not every page gets indexed. Google may skip pages that are blocked, duplicated, very thin or low quality, or that it simply has not found yet. A brand-new website can take days or weeks for everything to be picked up.

You can check what Google has indexed in Google Search Console, which lists indexed pages and gives reasons for the ones it has left out.

## Why it matters for a small business

If your services page is not indexed, it does not matter how good it is: nobody searching will ever see it. A surprising number of small business sites have important pages excluded because of a stray setting left on by the builder, and nobody notices for months.

**Example:** A plumber launches a new ‘Boiler servicing’ page, but a ‘discourage search engines’ box was left ticked in WordPress. Search Console shows the page as excluded, and it never appears in results until the box is unticked.