Technical SEO
How many pages should a new site index first
A new site should focus on getting its most useful and distinct pages indexed before trying to scale every template.
Problem
Publishing too many thin or similar pages early can dilute crawl attention and make it harder to see which templates are working.
Symptoms
- The sitemap contains many pages but search visibility is unclear.
- Important pages compete with thin variants.
- Google crawls pages but does not index many of them.
How to diagnose
- Group pages by template and purpose.
- Identify the pages that best prove site value.
- Check whether those pages are internally linked and represented cleanly in the sitemap.
How to fix
- Prioritize indexable pages that answer clear search intent.
- Consolidate or hold back thin variants.
- Use internal links to point crawlers and users toward the strongest pages first.
How Search Lighthouse helps
Search Lighthouse helps separate early indexation focus from premature scale by combining sitemap, crawl, and search evidence.
Related guides
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Why Google crawled but did not index your pages
Crawled but not indexed usually means discovery worked, but page quality, duplication, or signals did not justify indexing.
How to check robots.txt, sitemap, and canonical tags
Robots, sitemap, and canonical tags tell search engines what they can crawl and which URLs matter.