JOHN MUELLER: Today's question comes all the way from Brazil.
Marcau asks, why is the number of pages
indexed on Search Console different than what
appears on google.com?
Depending on where you look, you might see different numbers
for your site's count of indexed pages.
Which one is the right number, and which one should you use?
The actual number of pages on a website
is surprisingly hard to determine.
At first, one might assume that it's just
a matter of counting through the pages--
starting with the home page and following the links from there.
However, on most websites, there are many, many ways
to reach a specific page.
There might be different URL parameters--
so everything after a question mark in the URL--
that lead to the same page.
Sometimes upper and lower case URLs
also lead to the same page.
Or perhaps you can add a slash to the end
and still get the same page.
Some websites have a calendar or something similar
that leads to an endless number of new invalid pages.
Assuming that most websites have an infinite number
of possible URLs, should Google just show an infinite count?
That probably isn't that useful.
So which numbers can you see, and where do they come from?
There are three main places to get counts
for the number of indexed URLs.
First, you can check a site query in Google search.
Second, you can use the index status report
in Search Console.
Or third, you can look at the index count per sitemap file.
Let's take a look at these options.
In Google Search, you can just enter a site, and then
a colon, and then your domain name.
Google will show you a sample of the pages indexed
from your website, together with an approximate count
of the URLs from your website.
This number is generally a very, very rough approximation,
based on what we've seen from your website over time.
We try to show search results as quickly as possible,
so that count is optimized more for speed rather
than for accuracy.
It's useful to look at this as a very rough order of magnitude.
But we don't recommend using that count as a metric.
The second and third methods require that you
use Google Search Console.
Search Console is a free tool you can sign up for and verify
your website with.
In Search Console, there is a report
that shows a number of indexed URLs from your website.
This count is much more accurate,
and includes the actual indexed URLs from your website.
It's mostly based on pages that have unique content.
So it would usually exclude URLs with irrelevant URL parameters,
for example.
However, it can still include many URLs
that you don't necessarily care about.
The third place to check is a sitemap's indexed URL count.
Per sitemap file that you submit,
you can see how many of those URLs were actually indexed.
One thing to keep in mind is that this count
is based on the exact URL, as specified in your sitemap file.
So if your page's content is indexed
with a slightly different URL, than that
wouldn't be counted there.
In practice, we recommend either the sitemap file
or the indexed URL report in Search Console as the basis
for your website's metrics.
These are currently the most accurate indexing numbers
available to site owners.
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