Overview
Ensure the right pages are indexed and the wrong ones are not, so crawl budget and authority are not wasted.
Business problem
Valuable pages are excluded from the index while thin and duplicate pages are indexed, diluting the site.
Decision supported
Which pages to allow, block or consolidate in the index.
Inputs & outputs
Inputs
- Index coverage report
- URL inventory
- Canonical and noindex directives
Outputs
- Index-inclusion decision per template
- De-duplication plan
Step-by-step process
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1
Audit coverage
Compare indexed URLs against the pages that should be indexed.
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2
Diagnose exclusions
Find why valuable pages are excluded.
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3
Prune
Noindex or consolidate thin and duplicate pages.
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4
Confirm
Re-check coverage after changes settle.
Maturity model
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L1
Unknown
No view of what is indexed.
-
L2
Audited
Coverage compared to intent.
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L3
Controlled
Inclusion decided by template.
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L4
Clean
Index matches intent continuously.
KPIs
- Valuable-page index rate
- Thin-page index rate
- Duplicate clusters resolved
Common mistakes
- Indexing faceted and filter URLs
- Noindexing pages you meant to rank
- Canonical loops
SearchScore insight
Recommended next steps
Where this fits - and what's next
The SearchScore path from a problem you feel to visibility you can measure.