How to fix “Crawled but not indexed” errors on medium-authority websites

You’ve spent time perfecting product and category pages, but many still show as “crawled but not indexed” in Google Search Console. This means lost traffic and stalled SEO growth. Google’s recent quality updates emphasize strong content and internal linking. To fix this, audit crawl rules, enrich content, update your sitemap via a WordPress SEO plugin, and strengthen internal linking by adding recommended products blocks strategically inside your blog articles.

Problem

What you’re facing

Around 30% of your important pages aren’t getting indexed despite being crawled. These include product and category pages essential for your sales.

Why it matters now

Since Google’s August 2025 update, pages that are thin, duplicated, or poorly linked internally fall out of the index. Missing these pages means losing customers to competitors.

What’s the impact

Losing indexing on these pages equals missed organic visits and lost revenue daily. Unaddressed, this issue can grow and harm your site’s authority.

Solution

Four clear steps will recover your pages and boost traffic:

1. Add internal linking blocks inside blog articles to boost link equity.
2. Audit crawl rules.
3. Enrich and differentiate your content.
4. Update your main XML sitemap through your SEO plugin.

Audit crawl rules

Use a crawler tool like Screaming Frog to find

• Pages with <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> tags
• URLs blocked by your robots.txt file

Fix these by:

• removing noindex tags on pages you want indexed (check your SEO plugin settings on product/category templates)
• editing robots.txt to allow crawling of product and category directories (remove any Disallow: /products/ lines)
• verifying fixed pages in Google’s URL Inspection tool to ensure “Allowed” status for crawling and indexing

Enrich and differentiate your content

Identify pages with:

• less than 200 words of unique content,
• duplicate or very similar page titles.

Improve each by:

• writing 50–100 new words highlighting product benefits and features,
• optimizing images for web, converting them to WebP format with descriptive alt text to improve loading speeds,
• adding a short FAQ addressing common customer questions with schema.org,
• including two genuine customer testimonials by first name only,
• merging nearly identical pages and redirecting the weaker URL with a 301 redirect.

Update your XML sitemap for example via your WordPress SEO plugin

Manage your sitemap effectively:

• using Yoast SEO or Rank Math, ensure all enriched product and category pages are included in your sitemap settings,
• save changes to let the plugin automatically regenerate the sitemap (e.g., sitemap_index.xml),
• submit or resubmit this sitemap in Google Search Console to prompt Google to re-crawl these updated pages promptly.

Add internal linking blocks inside blog articles

Use your high-traffic blog posts to support under-indexed product pages by embedding recommended products blocks naturally within the text:

Placement based on blog length

• For posts up to 800 words, insert one block around the middle
• For posts 800–1,600 words, insert two blocks — after about one-third and two-thirds of the text
• For posts over 1,600 words, place three blocks evenly spaced

Block structure

• Heading: Recommended products
• Short intro sentence (e.g., “Check out these products related to [topic]”)
• Bullet or simple list of 4–6 product links with descriptive anchor text
• Avoid images inside these blocks to keep page speed optimal

Embedding these blocks this way improves user experience and distributes internal link equity, encouraging Google to prioritize indexing the linked product pages.

Real-world example

TechGizmo Shop lost 450 product URLs after Google’s update. Their recovery steps included:

• Removing obsolete noindex tags and fixing robots.txt
• Rewriting 380 thin pages with clear benefits, FAQs, optimized WebP images, and testimonials
• Regenerating their sitemap with Yoast SEO to include all prioritized URLs
• Adding two recommended products blocks inside ten of their most popular blog posts

After six weeks, 380 pages moved from “crawled but not indexed” to fully indexed, recovering 15% organic traffic and boosting monthly revenue by $12,000.

Step-by-step checklist

1. Audit and fix robots.txt and noindex tags.
2. Enrich thin and duplicate pages; merge and redirect duplicates.
3. Regenerate and submit your XML sitemap via your SEO plugin.
4. Identify relevant blog posts and add multiple recommended product blocks thoughtfully spaced.
5. Track index coverage and organic traffic weekly; make adjustments as needed.

Key takeaways

• Fix crawl blocks and remove noindex directives to re-enable indexing
• Enrich content with unique descriptions, FAQs, optimized WebP images, and user testimonials
• Keep your sitemap updated using WordPress SEO plugins to ensure Google sees your fixes
• Add internal linking blocks inside blog articles at natural points to strengthen the link profile of important product pages

Start this structured approach today and watch your unindexed pages return to search results within 4 to 6 weeks.