Indexability
Whether a page is technically eligible to be added to a search or retrieval index.
What is Indexability?
Indexability depends on status codes, robots directives, canonicals, authentication, rendering, and content availability. A page can be crawlable but intentionally non-indexable, or indexable in principle but never discovered.
A public article returning 200 with a self-referencing canonical and no noindex directive is technically indexable.
Why it matters for AI visibility
AI answers can shape awareness and buying decisions before a person visits a website. Understanding indexability helps teams connect what a model says with the prompts, sources, and technical signals that influenced the result. The useful next step is to observe the evidence, compare it over time, and act on the specific gap.
How to measure or use it
- Define the scope. Choose the relevant market, prompts, models, locations, and time window.
- Keep the evidence. Save the complete answer, its citations, and the page or claim being evaluated.
- Compare patterns. Look for repeated movement across prompts and models instead of reacting to one response.
- Take a specific action. Improve the owned page, correct a claim, earn third-party inclusion, or create better evidence.