How to check which pages have been indexed by a search engine?

Checking indexation isn't simply a matter of reviewing a list of pages in search results; it involves comparing data from various sources, as search engines don't always display a complete or synchronized index in their public interfaces. Professional SEO practices utilize several levels of verification, each fulfilling its own specific purpose.

The primary and most accurate source is webmaster tools. For Google, this is Search Console , where the indexing section displays pages already in the database, as well as excluded URLs, along with reasons. It's important to analyze not only the indexing status but also its status: "indexed," "detected but not indexed," "crawled but excluded"—these differences directly reflect the quality of the site's processing.

For a targeted check, use the URL inspection tool. It allows you to see whether a specific page is indexed, when it was crawled, and which version of the content the robot saw. This is especially important when analyzing recently added or updated pages, where indexing delays can be critical.

A similar approach is used in Yandex.Webmaster, where a report on indexed pages and exclusion reasons is available. In Yandex, it's also useful to track trends: which pages are quickly indexed and which are systematically ignored, as this often indicates issues with structure, quality, or accessibility.

An indirect method involves using search operators, such as site directives. This allows you to see which URLs are already in the search results, but it doesn't provide a complete picture and may lag behind in data. This method is used more for quick verification than for analytics.

A more advanced practice is to additionally compare the sitemap (sitemap.xml) with the actual index. If a significant portion of the sitemap URLs are not indexed, this indicates quality issues, internal linking, or technical limitations. This gap between the "expected" and "actual" index is often a key diagnostic indicator.