How can I tell if Google has deindexed my site?

Most site owners check the Manual actions report first. If it's empty, they assume they're fine. That assumption is wrong.

Google removes pages in two ways. A manual action is a human reviewer's decision, and it shows up in Search Console with a notice. Algorithmic removal is automated, and it shows nothing. The difference between manual and algorithmic deindexing matters because only one of them tells you it happened.

So you detect algorithmic deindexing from its effects. Three Search Console signals do the work:

1. Performance report. Impressions fall from a normal level to near zero within a day or two, across all queries at once.
2. Page indexing report. Indexed page counts drop while not-indexed counts rise.
3. URL Inspection. A page you know was indexed now reports that it is not on Google.

If all three agree, Google has removed the pages. If only one moves, look for a narrower cause.

OtterlyAI ran a public experiment in 2026 with two new domains, each loaded with roughly 1,000 AI-generated blog posts. Google removed both from its index. Otterly reports zero manual actions in Search Console on either domain.

The drops were abrupt. In Otterly's published data, capybara-world.com fell from 1,629 to 15 daily Google impressions on April 9. capybaraverse.com fell from 859 to 85 daily impressions on June 26, then to single digits. Otterly reports the first site lasted about 14 days in Google's index and the second about 90.

That pattern is what algorithmic removal looks like from the inside: a cliff in impressions, no message, no reason given. Google does not say which system removed them.

The removal matched Google's written policy. Google's spam policies define scaled content abuse as "when many pages are generated for the primary purpose of manipulating search rankings and not helping users." Google's separate guidance says "appropriate use of AI or automation is not against our guidelines." The trigger is volume without value, not the tool. Read the experiment's method and limits before drawing broad conclusions: it is one pair of sites on a low-stakes topic.

The page you are reading contains no first-hand testing. These figures are Otterly's.

Google's AI features documentation states that 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." It adds that there are no additional technical requirements.

The consequence is direct. Lose the index, and you lose eligibility for Google's AI surfaces too. In Otterly's test, once Google removed the sites, AI Overviews, AI Mode and Gemini almost never cited them.

Bing behaved differently. Bing never deindexed either site, and Microsoft Copilot, which grounds on Bing, kept citing them. Otterly tracked 3,934 citations for capybara-world.com, 2,718 of them from Copilot. If you see that split on your own site, it's covered in why Copilot can cite you when Google's AI doesn't.

Indexing restores eligibility only. It does not guarantee any AI answer will cite you.

Before you conclude Google removed you, rule out causes you control.

• A noindex or snippet directive. Google's robots meta tag documentation covers noindex, nosnippet, max-snippet and data-nosnippet. A template change can add these sitewide. noindex removes pages. The snippet controls keep content out of AI answers even while pages stay indexed.
• robots.txt blocking Googlebot. There is no separate crawler for AI Overviews, so a Googlebot block affects Search and its AI features together. See how AI Overviews relate to Googlebot.
• A firewall or CDN block. Your server can return 403 to crawlers that robots.txt allows. Pages then drop out over time with no rule change on your side.
• The Search Console AI inclusion control. As of October 2026, inclusion in AI Overviews and AI Mode is on by default, but a property can opt out, and child properties can inherit that setting from a parent. That hides you from AI features without deindexing anything.
• A reporting bug. Google confirmed a bug that depressed impressions in the Performance and Generative AI reports from roughly 12 to 13 August 2026. A drop in that window needs URL Inspection to confirm it.

A real deindex shows up in URL Inspection. A reporting glitch does not.

Work through this in order:

1. Confirm with URL Inspection on five to ten pages that used to get traffic. Note the reported reason for each.
2. Check the raw HTML of those pages for noindex and snippet directives.
3. Check robots.txt and server logs for Googlebot. Look for 403 or challenge responses.
4. Check Manual actions and Security issues. If either shows something, follow the stated fix and request review.
5. If nothing explains it, review your content against the scaled content abuse policy. Large batches of thin pages on a young domain match the pattern Google describes.
6. Check Bing Webmaster Tools separately. The engine-by-engine index status playbook covers both consoles.

Nothing here guarantees reinstatement. You can remove blocks and fix policy problems. Google decides what it indexes.