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Here's the real reason why
Google’s official doc tells you that indexing is just about technical requirements:
- Page is supported filetype
- Page returns 200 status code
- Googlebot can crawl the page
- No noindex directive on the page
- Page doesn't violate spam guidelines
But here's the thing...
Technical requirements only make your page ELIGIBLE for indexing.
At Indexing Insight, we monitor hundreds of thousands of pages daily. Our data shows that Google actively removes pages from its index after collecting signals for 130+ days.
After 190 days? Google starts to forget pages exist altogether.
Why does this happen?
Gary Illyes confirmed why: Google collects signals over time about each page and these signals can mean that they drop the page from its index. OR forget the page exists altogether.
But what types of signals is Google collecting?
Here are 3 hidden indexing requirements Google’s official docs won’t tell you:
1. Quality requirements
Google will initially index almost anything (especially from big brands). But it doesn't assess content quality immediately.
Example: We've seen real estate websites with 100,000 listing pages where only 30% stay indexed after 6 months. The rest? Removed due to low content quality compared to competitors.
If enough content on your domain fails this test, Googlebot learns to stop crawling entirely.
2. Authority requirements
The DOJ trial revealed Google still uses Nearest Seed PageRank.
Without solid backlinks and internal link architecture, your pages won't survive long-term indexing.
Big brands can get away with low-quality content because of authority. Smaller sites? You need both quality AND authority to stay indexed.
3. Engagement requirements
Google tracks 13 months of user session logs (clicks, impressions, queries) in NavBoost. The DOJ trial confirmed they use this data to manage what pages stay in the index.
Pages that don't appear for user search queries are dropped.
The scary thing?
Google will likely aggregate ALL these signals to make a decision. A page might have decent quality but zero engagement. Or good engagement but low authority.
Fail on multiple fronts? Your page gets the boot.
What should you do?
You should focus on the following actions every 3-6 months:
- Check which indexed pages were last crawled between 90-130 days.
- Audit the pages to check poor internal linking or low user engagement.
- Prioritize quality over quantity when publishing.
- Focus on building relevant high-quality backlinks in your industry.
At Indexing Insight we've tracked this pattern over 1 million pages from real websites that meet Google's tech requirements.
A LOT of pages meet the minimum technical requirements but are actively being removed from Google's Search index over the long-term.
Author: «Adam Gent»
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