Definition

The URL Inspection Tool is a feature within Google Search Console that provides information about Google's indexed version of a specific page and lets you test whether a URL might be indexable. It reports crawl, index, and enhancement details for a single URL.

The tool has two modes. Inspecting the indexed version shows data from Google's most recent crawl, including the canonical Google selected, the last crawl date, any crawl obstacles, and detected structured data or rich results. A live test examines the page as it currently exists on the web. Google notes that being in the index does not guarantee a page will appear in results, since a page must still meet quality and other requirements to be shown.

Examples

• Confirming a fix

  After removing a stray noindex tag, a developer runs a live test in the URL Inspection Tool to confirm the page is now reported as indexable.

• Checking the chosen canonical

  An SEO inspects a product URL and sees that Google selected a different canonical than the one declared, prompting a review of the page's canonical tag.

Sources

• Google Search Console Help — URL Inspection Tool

Related terms

• Google Search Console
  A free Google service that lets site owners monitor, maintain, and troubleshoot how their site appears in Google Search results.
• Indexing
  The process by which a search engine analyses a fetched page and stores information about it so the page can later be returned in search results.
• Canonical Tag
  An HTML element that tells search engines which URL is the master copy when the same or similar content exists at multiple addresses.
• Page Indexing Report
  A Google Search Console report showing which of a site's URLs Google has indexed and the reasons others have not been.
• Rich Results
  Search results enhanced with visual or interactive elements — review stars, prices, FAQs, recipe images — generated from a page's structured data.

Where QueryCatch uses this

• Crawling & Indexing
• SEO Audit