Tutorial · search-console · Published 2026-08-15 · 4 min read
Using Search Console URL inspection
How to use Search Console URL inspection to check a page's index status, run the live URL test and read what the result cards mean.
When to use URL inspection
The pages report answers "how many URLs are indexed"; URL inspection answers "what is happening with this one URL". Use it when a page you care about is missing from search results, when you fixed an issue, or when you want a screenshot of how Google sees a page.
Step 1: Inspect a URL
Open Search Console, paste a fully qualified URL into the search bar at the top of the property, and press enter. Inspect the exact URL plus its scheme, so https://www.example.com/blog/post/ rather than example.com. If the URL lives under a different property, the tool tells you to switch properties.
Inspection runs in two parts. The first reads the index: whether the URL is indexed, when it was last crawled, whether you submitted it in a sitemap, and the canonical Google selected. The second is the live URL test, which runs a fresh fetch, render and indexability check against the current site, not the last stored snapshot.
Step 2: Read the result
The important result lines:
| Result | Meaning |
|---|---|
| URL is on Google | The page is indexed and can appear in results |
| URL is not on Google | Google has not indexed this URL |
| Page is not selected as canonical | Google chose a different page as the indexable version |
| Request indexing is not possible | The live test found the page non-indexable |
Below the summary, the Coverage section explains it in two halves: whether Google crawled the page and what the fetch produced, and whether indexing is allowed. Answers to the questions you will see are mostly enumerated in the indexing and crawling basics guide.
Step 3: Run the live test when the action is wrong
The automatic inspection can be days old. When you tested a change or you suspect the issue is already fixed, press Test live URL (now often at the top of the card). The tool re-fetches the page right now and reports:
- Whether the URL is available to Google.
- Whether the page has a robots meta rule or X-Robots-Tag blocking it.
- What Google selected as canonical.
- If the page is renderable and indexable in the live index.
A common result: the live test says URL is available to Google, but the old snapshot says not indexed. That mismatch means the fix worked and the snapshot is stale, so you can move to step four.
Step 4: Request indexing
On the inspection result for a page, there is a Request indexing button. It is rate-limited to roughly ten to twelve individual requests per day per property, and it asks Google to crawl the URL again soon. It does not guarantee a faster rank, and it is only available when the live test does not treat the page as non-indexable.
Before using it, fix the reason the page was left out first. If the page was not indexed because of a noindex directive or a broken robots rule, the request is a no-op. Correct the cause, test the live URL again, and only then request indexing. For many pages at once, a sitemap is the repeatable path; see submit a sitemap to Google.
What the inspection shares as next steps
After a fix, re-inspect the same URL. You are looking for the same status line two days in a row, which is stronger than one fresh test. The pages report then confirms the effect site-wide, and the sibling pages covered in the pages report, the true site-wide view, takes over where inspection stops.