URL indexability checklist

Direct answer

A URL that loads in a browser is not necessarily eligible for indexing. First confirm a public crawler can fetch the final page, then inspect directives and the canonical URL. These checks identify obstacles; they do not prove that a search engine has indexed the page.

What to check

1. Fetch the exact URL. Record the original response and every redirect. A final 200 HTML response is a useful starting point. A 404, 5xx, login wall, timeout, or redirect to an unrelated page needs fixing before an index check is meaningful.
2. Read crawl and index rules separately. Inspect robots.txt for the final URL, then read meta robots and X-Robots-Tag on the fetched response. A robots.txt block can prevent Google from seeing a noindex rule; the two signals serve different purposes.
3. Check the selected canonical and discovery path. Compare the final URL with its rel=canonical target. Link to the preferred page internally and list that preferred absolute URL in the sitemap. For an owned Google property, use Search Console URL Inspection to see Google’s own record.

Example

Example: /old-page redirects to /guide, which returns 200 and declares /guide as canonical. Check and submit /guide, not the redirecting URL. If /guide has noindex, remove that directive only if you want it eligible for search.

What this does not establish

A clean checklist cannot force crawling or indexing. Search engines make their own selection based on many signals beyond these page checks.

Sources and next step

• Google: JavaScript SEO and HTTP statuses
• Google: ask for a recrawl

Read the RankMeOff measurement methodology or open the related tool page.