These two Search Console statuses look nearly identical at a glance but mean very different things: 'Discovered — currently not indexed' and 'Crawled — currently not indexed.'
Discovered — Currently Not Indexed
Google knows the page exists but
hasn't crawled it yet. Nothing has been evaluated. It's a queue position,
usually caused by weak internal linking or limited crawl budget.
A Simple Analogy
Discovered is like a letter
sitting unopened in a mailbox. Crawled-but-not-indexed is like a letter that's
been opened and set aside. In the first case, nothing has been decided yet. In
the second, a decision has already been made, and that's exactly why the fix
has to be different for each.
Crawled — Currently Not Indexed
Google visited the page and
chose not to index it. This is more serious, since the content was actually
assessed and didn't clear the bar, often due to thin or duplicate content.
Why It Matters Which One You Have
●
Discovered → add internal links
from relevant, already-indexed pages
●
Crawled but not indexed → improve
or differentiate the content, or consolidate with a stronger related page
Check the exact status text in
Search Console rather than guessing, the wording tells you exactly which
situation you're in.
A quick warning: repeatedly
requesting indexing for a page stuck at 'Crawled — not indexed' rarely works,
since Google already evaluated it once. The content needs to change, not just
get re-requested.
Full breakdown with a decision
framework: Discovered vs Crawled — currently not indexed.
Originally published on SEO Inbounds.