Technical SEO covers whatever keeps Google from crawling, indexing or loading a website’s pages, so the content on them can compete. Good At Marketing works from Boynton Beach, Florida, and handles this as one workstream within SEO management. A month of that management costs $1,000 to $1,600 on the pricing page, and the agency publishes no separate figure for technical work alone.
By Donnie Strompf. Updated October 2026.
What does Google’s Page indexing report tell a site owner?
Search Console’s Page indexing report lists the pages Google knows about on a site and sorts the ones it left out by reason. Google’s help page for it (Search Console Help, Page indexing report, no date shown, read October 19, 2026) says the goal is to get the canonical version of every important page indexed. It adds that an owner should not expect every URL to be indexed, because duplicate and alternate pages are usually left out on purpose.
The report has a Source column that says whether the cause sits with Google or with the website. Google says that, in general, only the issues with a source of Website can be fixed by the owner. A new page can take a few days to be indexed, and the page suggests requesting indexing to shorten the wait.
To see which address Google treats as canonical for a given URL, the help page points to the URL Inspection tool.
Not every listed reason is a problem. Google’s own example is a page blocked by robots.txt, which it calls probably intentional. What matters is whether a page that should be in the index is missing. The table further down pairs six common reasons with a first check.
How does Google describe Core Web Vitals?
Google’s Search Central page on Core Web Vitals (Google Search Central, Core Web Vitals, last updated 2025-12-10 UTC, read October 19, 2026) names three metrics. Largest Contentful Paint measures loading, Interaction to Next Paint measures responsiveness and Cumulative Layout Shift measures visual stability. Google suggests aiming for an LCP within 2.5 seconds, an INP under 200 milliseconds and a CLS under 0.1, and it recommends that site owners achieve good scores.
The Search Console report built on those metrics (Search Console Help, Core Web Vitals report, no date shown, read October 19, 2026) sorts URL groups into Poor, Need improvement and Good, using field data. A group takes the status of its weakest metric. Only indexed URLs can appear, and a group without enough data is left out, so a new or small site may see a No data available screen.
Because the figures come from actual visits, a page that feels quick on the owner’s own connection can still land in Poor. A group’s figure reflects what 75 percent of its visits experienced, according to the help page. The page adds that a site-wide event, such as a traffic spike, can push borderline pages from Good to Need improvement with no change by the owner.
What does technical SEO work involve?
Six tasks make up the work, and each one links to the Google page it follows. Our guide to technical SEO, titled “What Is Technical SEO? A Plain-English Guide”, explains the ideas for a newcomer, and the glossary defines technical SEO in a few lines.
- Crawl access. Google’s robots.txt introduction, read October 19, 2026, says the file tells crawlers which URLs they can request, mainly so a site is not overloaded, and that it is not a way to keep a page out of Google. The file needs a review for any rule that blocks pages or files a visitor would want found. Which AI crawlers to admit is a robots.txt choice too, covered in Which AI crawlers to allow in robots.txt, and whether llms.txt does anything.
- Index control. Google’s noindex page, read October 19, 2026, describes the meta tag and the HTTP header that drop a page from results. Any page that should rank must be free of it, and a leftover tag is easy to miss.
- Sitemaps. Google’s sitemap overview, read October 19, 2026, says a sitemap helps search engines find URLs but does not guarantee crawling or indexing, and that a site of about 500 pages or fewer may not need one if its pages are well linked. It also says a site on a platform like WordPress has probably been given a sitemap already.
- Duplicate addresses. One page can answer at more than one URL, for instance over both HTTP and HTTPS. Google’s canonical URL page, read October 19, 2026, says it weighs redirects and rel=”canonical” more heavily than a sitemap listing when it chooses among them, and that it prefers the HTTPS version unless something like an invalid certificate gets in the way. The owner’s job is consistency: one address per page, used in links, redirects, canonical tags and the sitemap.
- Page speed. The Core Web Vitals report above is the starting point, and its help page links to PageSpeed Insights for a test of one page. The fixes are changes to what the site loads, such as image files and scripts, so some of them need a developer.
- Structured data. Google’s introduction to structured data, read October 19, 2026, says markup gives Google explicit clues about a page and can make it eligible for rich results. It recommends JSON-LD and says the markup must describe content visible on the page. Our schema markup guide is titled “Schema markup for a small business: which types to add first”.
For a wider look at SEO fees for small businesses, see the SEO cost guide.
Which Page indexing reasons need an owner’s attention?
Google’s help page lists more than a dozen reasons. These six come from it. The third column is our suggestion and is separate from Google’s wording.
| Reason | What Google says it means | First check |
|---|---|---|
Crawled - currently not indexed | Fetched, not indexed; may be later | Compare with an indexed page |
Discovered - currently not indexed | Known but not yet crawled | Server speed and errors |
| URL blocked by robots.txt | The robots.txt file stopped the fetch | Was the block meant? |
| URL marked ‘noindex’ | Google found a noindex directive | Page source and response header |
| Server error (5xx) | The server returned a 500-level error | Ask the host for logs |
| Alternate page with proper canonical tag | Points correctly to an indexed page | Usually nothing |
For the Discovered entry, Google says it typically wanted to crawl the page but expected that to overload the site, so it rescheduled the crawl.
Who is technical SEO for?
Technical work pays off most on these three kinds of site.
- An online store with filters, size options and discontinued products. Each of these can multiply the number of addresses, so the questions are which versions get indexed and which point to one preferred address. Our ecommerce marketing page covers the store side.
- A site that has just been redesigned or moved platforms. Addresses change and old ones need to point somewhere. Google says server-side redirects have the quickest effect when a duplicate address is retired.
- A business whose Core Web Vitals report shows Poor groups. In our view, a page that loads slowly or jumps around on a phone loses visitors before search matters.
In our view, a small site that Google already indexes and that has Good scores will gain more from content and links than from further technical work.
The other parts of SEO have their own pages: local SEO services, SEO content services and link earning services.
What should be measured?
Ask for these four Search Console reports by name, as the help pages linked above spell them.
- Page indexing report. The counts of indexed and not indexed pages, and the reasons listed under why pages aren’t indexed.
- Core Web Vitals report. How many URL groups sit in Poor, Need improvement and Good, on mobile and on desktop.
- Crawl Stats report. Total crawl requests, average response time, host status and crawl responses.
- Sitemaps report. For each submitted sitemap, the Status (Success, Has errors or Couldn’t fetch), the Last read date and the number of Discovered pages (Search Console Help, Sitemaps report, read October 19, 2026). The report lists only sitemaps submitted through it or the API, and Google says a discovered page is not guaranteed to be crawled or indexed.
Before any work starts, save the current Page indexing counts and Core Web Vitals totals, so later numbers have a starting point. A provider’s report should name the Search Console report and the date range behind each number.
FAQ
Can technical SEO be bought on its own?
Technical SEO sits inside our SEO management, which runs $1,000 to $1,600 a month on the pricing page. It has no separate published price, and none is quoted here. To buy only the technical work, ask on the call, where we can say whether that fits your site.
What does Crawled - currently not indexed mean in Search Console?
Google fetched the page but left it out of the index for now. The help page, read October 19, 2026, says the page may or may not be indexed later and that there is no need to resubmit it for crawling. The page gives no cause, so compare it with similar pages that are indexed.
Will a robots.txt block remove a page from Google?
Not reliably. Google’s robots.txt introduction, read October 19, 2026, says a blocked page can still be indexed from links on other sites, and it appears without a description. The same page says to use noindex or a password to keep a page out. Google’s noindex page adds that the page must stay crawlable so Google can see the tag.
Why do the Core Web Vitals report and PageSpeed Insights show different numbers?
The Search Console report uses field data only. Google’s help page, read October 19, 2026, says PageSpeed Insights shows live test data alongside field data from actual users, so its figures can differ. Treat the report as the site-wide view and the test as a tool for one page.
How long does Google take to confirm a fix?
Google says validating a fix in the Page indexing report typically takes up to about two weeks, and sometimes much longer. A Core Web Vitals fix starts a 28-day monitoring period instead. Both periods come from Google’s help pages, read October 19, 2026. Neither is a promise about rankings.
Does a small site need the Crawl Stats report?
Usually not. Google’s help page, read October 19, 2026, aims the report at advanced users and says a site with fewer than a thousand pages should not need it. Owners of larger sites can use its host status and crawl responses tables to see whether Google met slow responses or errors.
Next step
The free AI-visibility audit comes first, then a 15-minute call. Have your site address and your Search Console access ready for the call. We meet clients by Google Meet or Zoom.