Pages removed from Google? Not a bug, but a choice
Google has stopped wasting time and resources. After years of accumulating everything and tolerating redundant content, meaningless URLs, and entire editorial archives forgotten even by those who wrote them, something has changed. The costs of maintaining such a vast index have become unsustainable in economic, energy, and above all strategic terms. The push for new AI features in Google is both the cause and the reason for this wave of deindexing, whereby the search engine is becoming more selective and simply leaving out pages that are not needed. In short, less quantity, more efficiency: this is not a penalty, there are no mistakes, but rather a profound revision of Google’s priorities. And those who do not adapt risk disappearing.
The collapse of indexed pages on Google
For months, reports from Google Search Console have shown a clear change: the number of pages scanned but not indexed is increasing, while those appearing in search results are gradually decreasing.
In some projects, the ratio between published pages and pages actually indexed has been reversed—for example, for our website seozoom.it alone, we have 8,734 unindexed pages compared to 3,201 indexed pages (among those excluded are redirects, query strings, canonical variants, etc.). In short, thousands of pieces of content have been cut out of the index without losing accessibility, direct traffic, or online status. They have simply disappeared from Google.
A deeper analysis reveals no particular technical errors, nor is there an isolated algorithmic update, but everything seems to be part of a long-term operation. More specifically, it is an evolution in Google’s indexing philosophy, aimed at improving the quality of search results and optimizing its immense resources.
The phenomenon, which affects large and small sites alike, with no clear distinction by sector or volume, does not seem random, as it largely concerns content that does not generate real value, according to the search engine’s increasingly selective parameters.
What is the current deindexing
Deindexing is not a new phenomenon. It is the removal of a page from Google’s index: this means that the page is no longer considered in search results, even if it is still online and fully accessible.
Unlike penalization, which implies a violation of guidelines, deindexing can occur silently. There is not always an error. Often, Google simply decides that a page is not worth the effort of keeping it in the index.
The current novelty concerns the “quantity”: today, this process has become much more frequent and systematic. Pages with few visitors, outdated or repetitive content are gradually disappearing from the radar.
Which pages are excluded from the index
By analyzing the discussions and analyses of the international SEO community that have emerged following the recent changes, it is possible to identify several common traits among the pages that Google is deindexing or moving to “Scanned, currently not indexed” status.
Often, these pages are not necessarily spam or low quality in an absolute sense, but have lost strategic relevance in the eyes of Google’s new approach.
In general, the common traits of deindexed pages are a lack of unique and defensible added value, low perceived usefulness to the user, and a lack of signals of authority and expertise. Google is essentially “pruning” its index to remove dead wood and focus its resources on content that offers real insight and a high-quality user experience.
Here are the most common categories and characteristics of the pages affected:
- Old and outdated content
Pages that may have been useful at one time but have now been superseded by more recent and comprehensive information, such as old blog articles (posts published many years ago that have not been updated, especially if they cover rapidly changing topics such as technology, marketing, or regulations) or news or articles related to past events (content that has lost relevance once the event it refers to has ended, unless it has historical or analytical value).
In short, these are pages that may have been published years ago and left there, with no traffic or practical use. Even when they do not contain obvious errors, they can no longer compete with fresher, more polished, and better-linked resources.
- Low-quality content
Thin content is a classic reason for deindexing, but quality control now seems to be much stricter. This includes pages that do not cover the topic in sufficient depth, duplicate or near-duplicate content (pages with content very similar to other pages on the same site or other sites, without adding original value), “skeleton” pages (tag pages, archive pages with little or no unique content, empty or nearly empty user profiles).
There is a further crackdown on weak pages, i.e., those published just to fill space, chase keywords, or intercept traffic without a clear strategy. They do not generate clicks, resolve doubts, or stimulate interaction: they are invisible to users and now also to search engines.
No less problematic are classic pages with duplicate content, common in blogs where the same topic is addressed on multiple occasions, or in e-commerce catalogs full of almost identical technical data sheets. When the informational value is redundant, Google selects and discards.
- Low “engagement” pages
Google may interpret the lack of interaction from users as a sign that the page is not useful. For example, it may remove pages with high bounce rates or those that do not generate traffic—such as articles buried in the site architecture that almost never receive visits.
Off-topic pages, which deal with topics far removed from the site’s specialization, can also end up in this trap because they do not reinforce the overall authority of the project.
Furthermore, we must not forget the various types of content that fall under the standard cases of non-indexing, even more so after the spam update of 2024—we are talking about aggregated content, “SEO parasites,” and large-scale, unsupervised AI-generated content: Google had already declared war on such “useless, repetitive, or written solely for the algorithm” content, promising 40% fewer low-quality pages in SERPs!
Finally, the last type “at risk” is simple, “commodity” informational content, i.e., pages whose value can be easily absorbed and reproduced by an AI Overview—articles that merely define a term or answer a simple factual question, listicle lists without any insight or unique point of view, pages that only offer calculators or conversion tables.
Why Google is really cleaning up
Optimizing time, resources, and quality of responses. These seem to be the goals behind Google’s acceleration.
More than anything else, there is a fairly simple aspect to consider: maintaining a gigantic index of billions of pages has a cost. Every archived page consumes space, energy, and computational resources. And Google, today, no longer has any interest in preserving content that does not bring value, and it is plausible that it is refining its processes to allocate resources more efficiently.
With the growing integration of artificial intelligence-based features, the search engine needs more reliable, organized, and relevant data. An essential index, free of ballast (content deemed non-essential), allows for better, faster, and more accurate responses. It’s a matter of efficiency, not punishment—it’s ultimately the concept behind crawl budget management.
The logic is clear: if a page is not useful to users, it is not useful to the index either. And in an environment where Google has to process increasingly complex and multitasking queries, every resource is allocated with greater care.
The impact of AI features: cause and reason
When it comes to AI, it’s impossible not to notice a relationship—at least a temporal one—between the full release of AI Overview (and Mode in the US) and this technical tightening, which suggests that AI features are both a “cause” (technical/resource reason) and a “reason” (strategic/product reason) for deindexing.
They are a cause because Google now needs to free up resources for Artificial Intelligence. AI Overview and conversational search mode are extremely resource-intensive in terms of computational resources. Processing a single query through a large language model (LLM) requires much more computing power than a traditional search based on indexing algorithms. Google must physically allocate a huge amount of computing power (servers, TPUs, energy) to run these new systems on a global scale. Maintaining a bloated web index of low-quality or redundant pages comes at a cost. By reducing the size of the index and the frequency of scanning unnecessary pages, Google can free up valuable infrastructure resources and reallocate them to costly AI operations. In this sense, deindexing is a necessary consequence of making the large-scale implementation of new features sustainable. It is a matter of efficiency and optimization of the computational budget.
On the other hand, from a strategic point of view, AI features make some pages redundant, and the very nature of AI Overview changes the value equation of a web page.
Many web pages exist solely to provide quick answers to factual questions (e.g., “What is the capital of Australia?” or “How many grams are in an ounce?”). Now, AI answers can summarize this information and present it directly to the user. As a result, it no longer makes much sense for Google to index, maintain, and rank dozens of pages that all say the same thing. The AI feature satisfies the search intent without the need for a click.
And then, if the simple answer can be provided by AI, the pages that deserve to be indexed and displayed are those that offer something more: in-depth analysis, original data, personal experience (the E-E-A-T principle), a unique point of view, or complex tutorials. Deindexing therefore affects pages whose content has become, in effect, an “information commodity” that AI can handle more efficiently.
So, deindexing appears to be both a tactical move to free up resources needed for AI and a strategic move in response to the fact that AI itself has changed the rules on what content is truly useful to the end user.
What does Google say? No response on the matter for now
There has been no official announcement specifically addressing this wave of deindexing, and as usual, Google has maintained a “neutral” position.
The only person to speak out has been John Mueller, who essentially said that there is no technical error, no bug, no anomaly: indexing systems are updated regularly and the fact that some pages are no longer included is a natural choice, linked to quality and resource management. Mueller reiterated that not everything can be indexed and that priorities change over time.
In other words, if a page is no longer considered useful to the user, it can be safely excluded. Even if it was previously present, even if it is technically perfect.
This position makes the new scenario even clearer: there is no longer any tolerance for the useless. And the only way to remain visible is to produce content that really makes sense today.
So what can be done? Strategies for responding to and avoiding deindexing
If Google is gradually raising the bar for quality, we have no choice but to adapt. We have known this for some time: it is not enough to publish and cross your fingers. Indexing today is even more selective, and every page must prove that it deserves space, otherwise it will be ignored.
Although it is not stated openly, the message is now clear: a page enters (or remains) in the index only if it offers real, demonstrable value. It is not enough for it to exist or be technically correct. Here are the characteristics it must have in order to continue to be considered useful.
- It responds to a concrete intent
It must address a real user query. Google now evaluates content based on its usefulness to searchers, not just on keywords.
- It complies with E-E-A-T principles
Google also evaluates the quality of content based on who writes it, how they write it, and how recognized or credible they are on the topic. A page that does not show clear signs in at least one of these areas will struggle to earn space in the index. You need an identifiable author, credible content, and thematic consistency with the site that hosts it.
- Bring something new or unique
A page that repeats what has already been said elsewhere, or overlaps with other content on the site, adds nothing to the index. Originality is not just stylistic, it is above all informative.
- It is well connected to the rest of the site
Google values integration: an orphan page, isolated, with no inbound links or logical connections, is considered marginal even in the overall structure.
- It receives minimal signs of life
Content with no traffic, no interactions, no updates, and no links is content that has left no trace. And today, what leaves no trace is left behind.
- It is up to date, or at least still relevant
There is no need to change the date every month, but a page must demonstrate that it still makes sense in the current context, both in terms of information and competition.
- It is consistent with the focus of the site
Google trusts those who maintain a clear line. If content strays too far from the thematic perimeter of the site, it is evaluated with less confidence.
Improve existing content to avoid being cut
Being indexed today means being useful, consistent, and active: Google no longer gives space to those who don’t prove themselves.
To avoid ending up on the sidelines, you need a solid, consistent, well-structured editorial vision. Each page should be designed to respond to a specific intent, fit into a logic of internal linking, and generate a minimum signal of value.
This applies to new content, as we have seen, but even more so to content that has already been published, which we must try to manage with clarity. Too many editorial projects carry years of useless pages, duplicates, and forgotten articles. And it is precisely these that make the site less authoritative in the eyes of Google.
This is where content pruning, or editorial optimization, comes into play: a process that reorganizes, streamlines, and strengthens. It is not about “cutting” to reduce, but about bringing out the content that really matters.
This work consists of systematically analyzing all published content and deciding whether to keep, update, or remove it. It is a process that starts with data—traffic, ranking, links, interactions—and ends with informed editorial decisions. In practice, you build an inventory of pages and evaluate the performance of each one. The weakest ones can be:
- deleted, if they add no value and cannot be salvaged
- improved, if they have potential but are outdated or incomplete
- merged with others, if they cover the same topic in a scattered way.
There is no need to do this across the entire site every month. But doing it at least once a year, or immediately after a loss of visibility, can change the performance of the entire project.
Today, this is more urgent than ever. Not only because the index is shrinking, but because a lightweight, consistent, and focused site performs better on all fronts: crawling, visibility, and user experience. It is a job of care, not cutting.
FAQ on deindexing
Google hasn’t stopped indexing: it’s stopped doing it blindly. For years, it included any passable content in its index, as long as it was technically accessible, but that’s no longer the case. As Ivano Di Biasi said at SEOZoom day, “Google has finished Google”: it has ended the mass collection phase and entered the active selection phase.
Those who persist in publishing generic, weak, or redundant content will continue to lose visibility, not because they are being penalized, but because they are no longer considered relevant. It’s time to clean up, strengthen what has value, and abandon the logic of quantity.
This is not a temporary update, but a change of model. And those who want to remain visible will have to review their editorial choices with greater clarity.
- Are deindexed pages lost forever?
No, not necessarily. A page can be reindexed if it is updated, strengthened in terms of content, or correctly linked back to the rest of the site. But waiting is not enough: concrete action is needed.
- Can I ask Google to reindex them?
Yes, you can submit a reindexing request via Search Console. But if the page has not undergone significant changes, it is unlikely to be reinstated. The request only works if there has been a real improvement.
- Is AI to blame?
Artificial intelligence has changed Google’s priorities, but it is not “to blame.” The index is adapting to a new search model: more concise, more accurate, more focused. And to support this transition, Google is streamlining everything that is not needed.
- Is it worth updating old content?
If it covers a topic that is still relevant and can be improved, yes. A good update can bring a page back into the index and make it competitive again. But if the content is outdated, confusing, or redundant, it’s best to remove it.
- How can you tell the difference between a page that can be saved and one that should be deleted?
It depends on three factors: Does it still make sense for the user? Does it generate traffic or valuable signals? Is it consistent with the site’s strategy? If the answer is no across the board, then that page is just clutter.
