SiteAud!tLint Support

Warning Internal Linking

Backlinked page not indexable

Severity
Warning
Impact
High
Effort to fix
Low
Issue code
backlinked_not_indexable

Why it matters

Other websites link to this page, but it is noindexed, canonicalised elsewhere or blocked by robots.txt, so it cannot rank from those links.

How to fix it

Make the page indexable if it should rank, or redirect it to the page that should receive the links.

What this means

Other websites link to this URL, according to your imported backlink data, and the page loads, but it cannot be indexed. It is blocked by robots.txt, has a noindex directive, or its canonical tag points to a different URL. The evidence shows how many backlinks and linking domains point at it.

Why it matters

The page attracts links but cannot rank, so the links do less than they could. A page blocked by robots.txt is the most wasteful case: Google cannot crawl it, so it cannot follow the page's own links or see where its signals should go.

Sometimes this is intentional and fine: a login page, a cart, or a filtered URL canonicalised to its main version.

How to fix it

Check why the page is not indexable, in the URL details:

ReasonAction
noindex on a page that should rankRemove the noindex. See Noindex directive
noindex on a page that should not rankFine, or redirect it to a relevant indexable page so the links count
Blocked by robots.txtAllow crawling if the page should rank; if it should not, a redirect or a noindex (which needs crawling to be seen) works better than a block
Canonical to another URLUsually fine: signals are consolidated to the canonical. Check the canonical target is correct and indexable

Verify the fix

Recrawl, then import the same backlink file into the new audit with File > Import Backlinks CSV, because an import belongs to the audit it was added to. Once the page is indexable, or redirects to an indexable page, the issue no longer appears.

How it affects your score

Finding this issue on any page costs the Internal Linking score 3 points, plus up to 12 more depending on the share of crawled pages affected. Weakens rankings, crawling or measurement. Fix after critical issues.

Find the affected URLs

Open Crawl > Issues and pick Backlinked page not indexable. Each affected URL is listed with its evidence, and Copy URLs or Export URLs hands the list to a developer. The issue also appears in the Action Plan, ranked by impact (high) and effort (low), and in the issues CSV under the code backlinked_not_indexable. After fixing, run a new audit and use Compare to confirm the URLs moved to fixed.

Guides that cover this issue