Separate crawling, indexing, impressions and clicks when investigating search visibility. Record evidence before choosing a technical or content fix.
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“We are not showing up” can describe several different problems. A page may be inaccessible, excluded from indexing, indexed but rarely shown, or shown without receiving clicks. Each situation needs different evidence. Start with the exact URL and the symptom instead of changing several SEO settings at once.
Record when the problem was first noticed and whether it affects one page, a group of templates or the whole site. Compare that timeline with deployments, URL changes, content edits and measurement changes. A coincidence is a clue to investigate, not proof of causation.
| Stage | What to inspect | What the result can tell you |
|---|---|---|
| Access | Public response and rendered page | Whether visitors can reach the content |
| Indexing | Search Console URL Inspection | Google's recorded indexing and canonical information |
| Discovery signals | Internal links and sitemap entries | Whether intended URLs are consistently referenced |
| Search exposure | Performance report by page and query | Whether recorded impressions or clicks changed |
| Business action | Verified conversion measurement | Whether visitors complete the intended next step |
Keep the indexed inspection result separate from a live test. A live test can help assess current accessibility, but it does not prove that a URL is indexed. A manual search or site query is not a complete substitute for the diagnostic reports.
Suppose a service page still opens normally but search clicks fall. First check whether impressions fell too, and whether the comparison uses similar periods and the same search type, country and device filters. If impressions remain similar, inspect the queries and search presentation before assuming the page became inaccessible.
If URL Inspection reports an unexpected exclusion or canonical choice, examine the relevant directives and page relationships. Do not remove a deliberate noindex instruction from a private or unfinished page merely to increase the number of indexed URLs. Confirm the intended state with the owner.
Write a short diagnostic note: affected URL, observed symptom, evidence date, likely explanation, uncertainty and proposed verification. Route access or rendering problems to a technical owner; route missing answers to an editor. Keep the change small enough that you can tell whether the identified issue was resolved.
Search results can change for reasons beyond a website edit. Monitor after the fix and avoid promising a particular recovery date. Use the related guides below for focused checks, then move confirmed findings into a prioritized work queue.
No. A live test examines the current page for relevant accessibility conditions. The indexed result and later search reporting provide different information.
Not automatically. Check the affected pages, queries, reporting filters, indexing state and recent changes first. Choose a content revision only when the evidence supports that response.
For the broader workflow, explore Search & AI Visibility.
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