In brief: Website indexing is the process in which a search engine processes a page it has found and may add it to its index. Discovering or crawling a URL does not by itself guarantee indexing.
How I use Website indexing in practice
In practice I connect Website indexing with the specific path of a person and a bot. I check what the server actually returns, what is rendered and where the next step leads. A technical task gets priority according to its impact on discoverability, clarity or conversion, not according to the colour in an automated audit.
What to watch out for
Beware of fixing the score instead of the problem. Website indexing can look correct in a tool while an important page remains unavailable or unclear. A broad change without a sample and rollback is equally dangerous: a technical change can easily affect hundreds of URLs at once.
Questions for a decision
- What exactly does the server return and what does a person see on an important URL?
- Is this an individual error or a pattern in a shared template?
- What is the impact on discoverability, use or conversion?
- How will we test the change before a broad rollout?