Free Index Status Check for Google and Bing, Engine by Engine

An index status check answers one question per engine: does this engine hold a copy of the page it can serve? That is a narrower question than "does AI mention us", and it comes first.

Google states the rule plainly in its AI features documentation. To be eligible as a supporting link in AI Overviews or AI Mode, a page "must be indexed and eligible to be shown in Google Search with a snippet." Google adds that there are no additional technical requirements. So a page missing from Google's index is missing from Google's AI surfaces too.

Bing matters for a different reason. Microsoft documents its Bing index as the backing store for Copilot and Azure's Grounding with Bing Search. If you want the background on why answers depend on this step, read our note on indexing.

The practical rule: check each engine on its own. Our engine-by-engine playbook covers the full routine.

Google Search Console is free. You need to verify that you own the site.

1. Go to search.google.com/search-console and add your site as a property. A Domain property covers every subdomain and protocol.
2. Verify ownership, usually with a DNS TXT record.
3. Paste a full page URL into the URL Inspection bar at the top.
4. Read the verdict. "URL is on Google" means indexed. "URL is not on Google" means it isn't, and the report says why.
5. Open the details. Check whether indexing is allowed, when Google last crawled the page, and which canonical Google selected.
6. For the whole site, open Indexing, then Pages, to see which URLs are indexed and the reasons others are not.

A site:yourdomain.com search gives a rough public signal. It is not an index report, so don't treat its count as exact. For signs of a site-wide drop, see how to tell if Google has deindexed your site.

Bing Webmaster Tools is also free and also needs verification.

1. Go to bing.com/webmasters and sign in.
2. Add your site. You can import it straight from Google Search Console, which skips separate verification.
3. Use the URL Inspection tool on a key page to see whether Bing has indexed it.
4. Review the site's indexing and crawl reports for pages Bing has dropped or never fetched.
5. Open the AI Performance report (public preview since February 2026) to see citation activity across Copilot and Bing's AI summaries.

The AI Performance report is the only place, as of October 2026, that shows grounding queries: the phrases the AI actually used to retrieve your content. We explain it in free Copilot citation data in Bing Webmaster Tools.

Read the two engines as separate verdicts.

When a page is "not indexed", the reason decides the fix. A noindex tag is yours to remove. A crawl block points to robots.txt or your CDN. A "crawled, not indexed" verdict is the engine's choice.

Indexed is not the finish line. A page with nosnippet, max-snippet:0 or large data-nosnippet blocks can be indexed yet kept out of AI answers. Run the noindex, nosnippet and data-nosnippet check next.

OtterlyAI ran a public test in 2026. It launched two new domains, each with roughly 1,000 AI-generated posts. Google deindexed one site after about 14 days and the other after about 90, and Otterly reports zero manual actions on either. That fits Google's spam policy on scaled content abuse, which targets many pages made to manipulate rankings without adding value.

Bing never deindexed either site. Of the 3,934 citations Otterly tracked for one site, 2,718 (69%) came from Microsoft Copilot. Google's AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini almost never cited them. ChatGPT barely cited them either, even while the sites ranked in Bing.

Two lessons follow. An engine cannot cite what its index no longer holds. And being indexed is necessary but not enough. The test was one pair of sites in a low-stakes topic, run by a vendor, so read it as a clear illustration, not proof. Our write-up of the Otterly experiment covers its method and limits.

Index status is one gate. Several things sit outside it.

• Serving. Google says indexing and serving isn't guaranteed. An indexed page can still go uncited.
• Google's AI opt-out. Search Console has a generative AI control that is on by default and inherits to child properties. Its state isn't visible from outside. See whether Search Console is hiding you from AI.
• Other engines. ChatGPT search, Perplexity and Claude run their own retrieval. None offers a public index status tool.
• Access. A firewall can block an AI crawler that robots.txt allows. Cloudflare began blocking some AI crawler categories by default on 15 September 2026 for certain accounts, with no edit by the site owner.
• Clicks. Google's generative AI report shows impressions only, with no clicks or position.

The manual steps work for a handful of pages. For more, use the same free sources in bulk.

• Google Page indexing report. It lists every known URL with its status and reason, so you don't inspect pages one at a time.
• Search Console URL Inspection API. It returns index status, last crawl and canonical for up to 2,000 URLs a day per property.
• Bing site import. Importing from Search Console gets both engines verified in minutes.

Once both indexes look healthy, see what the answers actually say. The free checker on this site runs up to three buyer questions and shows whether AI engines name you. It is a snapshot, not ongoing tracking, so rerun it after any fix.

Is checking index status in Google enough for AI search? No. Google's index governs AI Overviews and AI Mode. Microsoft Copilot grounds on Bing's index. In Otterly's test, Google dropped both sites while Bing kept them, and Copilot went on citing them. A healthy result in one engine tells you nothing about the other. Check both, and remember that ChatGPT, Perplexity and Claude use their own retrieval with no public index report.

Can I check index status without verifying my site? Only roughly. A site: search in Google or Bing shows some indexed pages, but the count is an estimate and won't explain why a page is missing. URL Inspection in Search Console and the tools in Bing Webmaster Tools need ownership verification. That step is free and usually takes a DNS record or a one-click import from Search Console.

Will Google warn me if it deindexes my site? Not always. Manual actions appear in Search Console, but algorithmic removals carry no notice. Otterly reports zero manual actions on either site Google deindexed in its test. Watch the Pages report and your impression trend instead. A sudden collapse in impressions, paired with URL Inspection showing pages not on Google, is the signal to investigate.

Does adding schema or an llms.txt file help a page get indexed for AI? Neither is required. Google says structured data isn't required for generative AI search, and that Google Search ignores AI text files like llms.txt. Eligibility for AI Overviews and AI Mode is the same as for regular Search: indexed and snippet-eligible. Focus on crawl access, indexing and snippet controls, which are the gates Google actually documents.

If my page is indexed, why isn't it cited in AI answers? Indexing makes a page eligible, not chosen. Google states indexing and serving isn't guaranteed, and retrieval happens per query at the engine's discretion. Check for snippet controls like nosnippet or data-nosnippet first. Then check whether engines cite other sites for your topic, because being named on those sites is associated with appearing in the answer.