Crawled currently not indexed: store products left out of Google
The status “Crawled - currently not indexed” means Google has visited the product page and has not added it to the index for now. Most often the cause is duplicates, thin content or conflicting signals, such as a canonical pointing to another address. You check it in six steps. Some causes you can fix in the store, but the indexing decision always belongs to Google.
Author: The TellMyShop team. A guide for PrestaShop store owners: the cause, the manual fix and the same work in a chat conversation.
Last updated: · 5 min read
What exactly does this status mean?
Google knows the address, has visited it and decided that the page will not go into results for now. The status does not mean something is broken. Google has assessed the page, and the assessment can change when the page or its surroundings in the store change.
The Search Console help on the Pages report says plainly that not every known page will be indexed. In a larger store, some addresses outside the index are a normal sight. The problem starts when the products left out are ones that sell in the store.
What depends on you, and what on Google?
It is worth knowing this line before the diagnosis. It saves false hopes and unnecessary changes.
| Area | Depends on you | Depends on Google |
|---|---|---|
| Access to the page | code 200, no noindex, robots.txt without a block | when the crawler comes back |
| Address signals | canonical pointing to itself, no redirect chains | which of several similar addresses it treats as the main one |
| Content | your own description, features, images with alt text | whether it considers the page worth indexing |
| The path to the product | an active category, links, a sitemap | how many store pages the crawler visits |
| After the fix | indexing request, validating the fix | the timing and the final decision |
How to diagnose the problem in 6 steps
Go in order. Each step rules out one group of causes.
- Confirm the status of one address. Paste the product address into the URL Inspection tool and run a live test. You will see whether Google can fetch the page today and which address it treats as canonical.
- Check what the page tells the crawler. The response code must be 200, with no redirects on the way. Meta robots must not contain noindex, as described in the guide to blocking indexing. The canonical should point to the same address.
- Look for duplicates. Products that differ only in colour, copies made with the Duplicate button, addresses with filter parameters. Google then picks one address as the main one, as explained in the guide to canonical URLs.
- Assess the content. An empty description, two sentences from the wholesaler or text identical to a hundred other stores is a common cause. Take a sentence from the description and search for it in Google in quotation marks.
- Check the path to the product. The product should be in an active category linked from the menu. The sitemap should be up to date and submitted, as covered in the sitemaps overview.
- Fix, request indexing and wait. After the change, send a request for a few of the most important addresses. In the Pages report, start validating the fix and watch the number of addresses with this status.
More examples from PrestaShop practice are collected in cyberfolks' guide to product indexing (in Polish).
Which causes are typical for PrestaShop?
Three come up most often. The first is category filters, which create thousands of addresses with parameters. The crawler spends its time on them while products wait. We describe this in the post on what to do when PrestaShop filters are not working.
The second is descriptions from imports. The wholesaler gives the same text to every store, so Google already has that description in the index. The third is products with no category other than the home page, or in a disabled category. Such a product has an address, but no store page leads to it.
Combinations are a separate case. Product combinations in PrestaShop share one address, but some themes and modules create addresses with the combination number in a parameter. Google then sees several addresses with almost the same content and picks one. The rest are marked as excluded, which is fine in this case. Just check that the canonical of each points to the product's main address.
How to check a product page the way the crawler sees it
You ask for an address to be checked, and your chat (Claude or ChatGPT) opens the page the way the crawler does. It gives the response code, the redirect chain, meta robots, canonical and hreflang pairs. It also reads the product data and tells you whether the description is empty or short. On request, it compares it with the descriptions of similar products. This works in TellMyShop Free.
You: The Nora lantern has the status crawled, currently not indexed in Search Console. Check this page the way Google does.
Your chat: The page returns 200, with no redirects. Robots: index, follow. The canonical points to the same address. Technically everything is fine. The problem is the content. The long description has 41 words, and comparing it with this brand's lanterns shows the same text in 3 other products. I suggest a new description:
Saving the description requires TellMyShop Pro. After saving, request reindexing of this address in Search Console.
Card status: waiting for your “yes”old version: Metal lantern, high quality, ideal for the garden. (41 words from the wholesaler)
new version: Nora lantern in black steel, 38 cm, for a candle up to 7 cm in diameter. (a description of about 180 words: dimensions, material, use)
The chat has no access to Search Console and cannot speed up Google's decision. It helps you find the causes on the store's side and improve content in batches, with a preview before saving. Similar requests are described in the use cases checking language versions and page signals and a full store SEO audit. You will find a wider checklist in the post PrestaShop SEO audit, and you can start with the free TellMyShop Free.
Questions and answers
What is the difference between crawled and discovered, currently not indexed?
A discovered page is an address Google knows but has not visited yet. A crawled page has been visited and assessed, and Google decided not to add it for now. With discovered, the issue is usually how Google reaches the store. With crawled, you need to look at the page itself: content, duplicates and signals.
Does requesting indexing in Search Console solve the problem?
Sometimes it speeds up the crawler's next visit, but it does not change how the page is assessed. If the page is a duplicate or has thin content, Google will visit again and make the same decision. Send the request after a fix, not instead of one. Sending it many times for the same address does nothing.
Is it normal for some products not to be indexed?
Yes. Google does not index every page it knows about, and says so in the Search Console help. In a store this usually affects very similar products, combinations, filter pages and products with a description copied from the wholesaler. Worry when the products left out are ones that sell.
How long does Google need to index a fixed page?
Nobody can promise that. Google visits pages at its own pace, which depends among other things on the size of the store and how often it changes. In the Pages report you can start validating the fix and watch how the number of addresses with this status changes. Judge the effect after a few weeks, not a few days.
Can the chat see my Google Search Console data?
No. The TellMyShop module reads the store, not your Google account. The chat checks the page the way the crawler sees it: response code, redirects, robots, canonical and hreflang. It also finds empty and duplicated content in the catalogue. You handle the Search Console status and indexing requests yourself.
PrestaShop is a registered trademark of PrestaShop SA. Claude is a trademark of Anthropic PBC. ChatGPT and OpenAI are trademarks of OpenAI. TellMyShop is not affiliated with these companies.