Rule (R3): "Discovered – not indexed" and "Crawled – not indexed" have DIFFERENT triggers — first is crawl-priority/site-wide quality signal, second is per-page quality decision; treat them differently

Rule: The two GSC "not indexed" states have different underlying causes and should be treated differently:

• "Discovered – currently not indexed" = Google knows the URL exists but hasn't crawled it yet. At scale this is a crawl-priority / site-wide quality signal (A large "Discovered – currently not indexed" backlog is a SITE-WIDE quality signal, not a per-page problem — Google declines to spend crawl resources on URL patterns it predicts will be low-value). Fix: site-wide quality and internal-linking architecture.

• "Crawled – currently not indexed" = Google has crawled the page and chose not to index it. This is a per-page quality decision (Search Console "Crawled – currently not indexed" is a deliberate quality decision, not a queue state — Google fetched and evaluated the page and CHOSE not to index it). Fix: improve the specific page, or accept that it isn't worth keeping.

Why: These two states are commonly conflated. "Discovered" looks like a queue problem; it's usually a site-wide signal. "Crawled" looks like a Google bug; it's usually a deliberate quality decision. Different triggers → different interventions. Misdiagnosing one as the other produces wasted effort.

How to apply: Read the GSC Page Indexing not-indexed breakdown by category, not aggregate count. If "Discovered" is rising while "Crawled" is steady → site-wide quality lift (internal linking, content depth, prune thin content). If "Crawled" is rising while "Discovered" is steady → per-page quality lift on the affected pages (rewrite, merge, or drop). Cross-link: Rule: a large or rising "Discovered/Crawled – currently not indexed" count is a SITE-WIDE quality signal — fix the site, not the page, Rule: if important pages remain unindexed after ~4 weeks despite good content and clean technicals, escalate to a content-quality and internal-linking audit — do NOT just keep clicking "request indexing".