IndexChex index checker

Role in IndexChex

The index checker is the verification half of IndexChex. Submission tools report what they sent; the checker reports what Google actually shows. Running both from one credit balance means a user does not have to trust a vendor's self-reported "success" count or move lists between products to confirm it.

It is also a standalone tool. Many users check large link lists with no intention of submitting them, for example to audit a link vendor's delivery or to see which of a site's pages Google holds.

How a URL is checked

Each URL is looked up in live Google search results using four query forms:

If the URL appears for any of the four, it is recorded as indexed. Using several forms matters because a single operator query can miss a page that is in the index: differences in protocol, trailing slashes, letter case or percent-encoding can stop one form from matching while another still finds the page. The glossary has fuller entries on the site: operator and inurl.

Since September 2026, a URL whose lookup cannot be completed is reported separately as failed rather than being counted as not indexed (see the changelog). This keeps temporary lookup problems out of the indexation count.

Limits and cost

Prices for credits are on the pricing page; complete product limits are in the specifications.

Accuracy

IndexChex measures checker accuracy weekly on recurring URL sets. As of October 2026 the checker is ~96% accurate on average. The figure is an average, not a per-URL promise, and the measurement is described in the IndexChex measurement methodology.

The remaining disagreement has ordinary causes. Google's results change between queries and data centres, a URL may be indexed under a different canonical, and very new pages can appear and disappear while Google settles on them. A single "not indexed" result on a page submitted an hour ago means less than the same result five days later, which is why the product pairs submission with scheduled re-checks rather than an immediate check.

Reading the results

• Indexed: Google returned the URL for at least one query form. It is eligible to pass whatever value Google assigns it.
• Not indexed: none of the four forms found it. Common causes are a recent publish date, noindex, a canonical pointing elsewhere, robots.txt blocking Googlebot, or Google choosing not to index thin or duplicated content.
• Failed: the lookup did not complete. Re-run these rather than acting on them.

From the results screen, not-indexed URLs can be sent to a new URL indexer job in one click. For links on third-party pages, running the backlink monitor first shows whether a missing page is a crawl problem or a page that has blocked indexing or dropped the link.

Limits of any index checker

A checker sees what Google's public results show at one moment. It cannot see Google's internal reasons for excluding a URL, and it does not replace Search Console's URL Inspection tool on a site you own. For third-party backlinks, where Search Console is unavailable, a repeatable multi-query check is the practical substitute.