Good news: It costs nothing to get your page listed on Google — no matter what anyone might say!
But to be eligible for Google Search, your page must meet some basic technical checks.
1️⃣ Googlebot Must Be Able to Find Your Page #
Google’s crawler, called Googlebot, needs access to your page.
If your page:
- Requires a login (private)
- Blocks Googlebot using robots.txt or other tools
Then Google can’t crawl or index it, and your page won’t appear in search results.
Tip: Use Google Search Console’s URL Inspection tool to check if Googlebot can see your page.
2️⃣ Your Page Must Work Properly (HTTP 200 Status) #
Google only indexes pages that load successfully, with a “200 OK” status.
If your page shows errors like:
- 404 Not Found
- 500 Server Error
Google won’t index those pages.
Use Search Console or tools like httpstatus.io to check your page’s status code.
3️⃣ Your Page Must Have Indexable Content #
Once Googlebot can access your page and it loads fine, Google looks for content it can index.
This means:
- Text and media must be in formats Google supports (like HTML text, images, videos).
- The content should not violate Google’s spam policies (no keyword stuffing, no hidden text).
Quick Note on Blocking vs. Indexing #
Blocking Googlebot with robots.txt stops crawling, but your page’s URL might still show up in search results without details.
If you want to prevent indexing but still allow crawling (for example, for temporary pages), use the noindex tag on your page.
✅ Summary #
For your page to appear on Google:
- Googlebot must be able to access it
- The page must load without errors
- The page must contain content Google can understand and index