Everything you need to use Indexwhy — from your first URL check to understanding what the results mean.
Indexwhy is a diagnostic tool. It fetches a URL the way a search-engine crawler does and lists every mechanism — in headers, HTML, or site configuration — that would stop it being indexed.
Go to the App page. Paste a full URL (including https://) into the input field and click Check this URL.
Wait a few seconds. Indexwhy fetches the page, follows redirects, reads HTTP headers, parses the HTML, checks robots.txt, and looks up the sitemap.
Read the report. Findings are colour-coded:
Use the Copy report button to copy the findings as markdown, or Download .md to save them as a file. No results are stored server-side.
noindex tag — what do I do?If Indexwhy reports a <meta name="robots" content="noindex"> tag, remove it from the page HTML or change it to content="index". This is the most common reason a page vanishes from search, and it is almost always left in by accident after a redesign or staging-to-production migration.
If the tag is in an HTTP X-Robots-Tag header instead, remove the header from your server configuration or change its value to index.
Not necessarily. Indexwhy runs on Cloudflare Workers and cannot fetch URLs that are also hosted on Cloudflare. If the site you are checking uses Cloudflare, the tool will report "unreachable" even when the page works perfectly in a browser. Use Google Search Console's URL Inspection Tool instead for those URLs.
Other common reasons for "unreachable": the site blocks non-browser User-Agent strings, the site requires a login, or the URL itself is invalid or offline.
A clean report means none of the mechanisms Indexwhy checks are blocking or weakening indexation. It does not mean the page will rank well, appear in search results immediately, or stay indexable after the next deploy. Indexability is a prerequisite for ranking, not a guarantee of it. Always verify using authoritative tools such as Google Search Console.
No. Indexwhy fetches the raw HTML response — the same thing Googlebot reads during initial discovery. SEO tags injected or modified by JavaScript (e.g., in a single-page application framework) will not be detected. For pages that depend on JavaScript rendering, use Google Search Console's URL Inspection Tool, which renders the page with JavaScript.
No. The URL you submit is processed in real time and discarded once the report is generated. Nothing is logged, saved, or stored server-side. The only persistent data is a colour-theme preference stored in your browser's localStorage (key: ixw-theme), which is never transmitted to our servers.
When you click Copy report or Download .md, that happens entirely in your browser — nothing is sent to a server.
The Free tier checks one URL at a time. A Professional plan ($12/month) is planned that will include batch URL checking, saved report history (local), and CSV export. The Professional checkout is not yet connected to a payment processor — see the Pricing page for current status. Until then, you can check URLs one by one on the App page.
Indexwhy is a focused diagnostic tool. These limitations are known and documented so you know what the tool can and cannot tell you.
Cloudflare-hosted targets — Indexwhy runs on Cloudflare Workers and cannot fetch URLs behind Cloudflare. Use Google Search Console for Cloudflare-hosted sites.
JavaScript rendering — Only raw HTML is read. SEO tags injected by JavaScript are invisible to the tool.
No ranking or traffic estimates — The tool checks indexability, not ranking position or traffic potential. Being indexable is the floor, not the outcome.
Single URL at a time — The Free tier checks one URL per request. There is no full-site crawl or bulk mode available yet (Professional plan, when launched, will include batch checking).
Login-gated pages — Pages behind authentication cannot be fetched. The tool will report them as unreachable.
Professional plan payment processing — The Professional tier's checkout is not yet connected to a payment processor. All Professional features (batch checking, report history, CSV export) are designed but not yet billable. See Pricing for the current state.
Account system — There is no user registration, login, or account system. All checks are anonymous. A login system (needed for Professional features like saved history and batch workflows) is planned but not yet built.
Support is handled by email. We respond as quickly as possible — usually within 24 hours on business days.
Include the URL you were checking (if relevant) and a description of what you were trying to do.
indexwhy-p1@agen2ic.ainoindex tag or a redirect chain, those sections already explain what to do. If the answer is not here, email us.