How to Fix Crawl Errors in Google Search Console (Step-by-Step)

How to Fix Crawl Errors in Google Search Console (Step-by-Step)

Posted on: 03 Aug, 2026

Crawl errors are one of the most common — and most damaging — technical SEO issues affecting websites. When Googlebot encounters errors while trying to crawl your site, it cannot properly index your pages, which directly impacts your search rankings. The good news is that Google Search Console gives you a detailed view of every crawl error on your site and the tools to fix them.

This step-by-step guide covers everything you need to know about identifying, understanding, and fixing crawl errors.

What Are Crawl Errors?

Crawl errors occur when Googlebot tries to visit a URL on your website and encounters a problem — the page does not exist, the server is unavailable, the page redirects in a loop, or access is blocked. These errors prevent Google from properly crawling and indexing your content.

How to Find Crawl Errors in Google Search Console

Log in to Google Search Console and navigate to:

• Coverage report (Index → Coverage): Shows all pages with indexing issues categorized by error type, warning, valid, and excluded
• Crawl Stats (Settings → Crawl Stats): Shows crawl volume, response codes, and file types crawled
• URL Inspection Tool: Check the crawl status of any individual URL

The Most Common Crawl Errors and How to Fix Them

1. 404 Not Found Errors

What it means: Googlebot requested a page that does not exist on your server.

Why it happens: You deleted a page, changed the URL, or there are broken internal/external links pointing to old URLs.

How to fix it:

• If the page was moved: set up a 301 permanent redirect from the old URL to the new one
• If the page was deleted and there is no relevant replacement: let it return a proper 404 (Google handles legitimate 404s fine)
• Find and fix all internal links pointing to the deleted URL using Screaming Frog or Search Console's internal links report
• If external sites link to the deleted URL, reach out to update the link or ensure your 301 redirect captures that link equity

2. Server Errors (5xx)

What it means: Your web server returned an error when Googlebot tried to access a page.

Why it happens: Server overload, hosting issues, misconfigured server settings, or a PHP/application error.

How to fix it:

• Check your server error logs for the specific error
• If traffic-related: upgrade your hosting plan or implement caching
• If application-related: check your application error logs (in Laravel: storage/logs/laravel.log)
• Contact your hosting provider if the issue persists

3. Redirect Errors

What it means: Googlebot followed a redirect but encountered a problem — redirect loop, too many redirects, or a redirect to an error page.

Why it happens: Incorrect redirect configuration, redirect chains that are too long, or circular redirects.

How to fix it:

• Use a tool like Screaming Frog to map all your redirects
• Fix redirect chains — ensure all redirects go directly A → Z, not A → B → C → D
• Break any circular redirects (A → B → A)
• Ensure redirects lead to live, indexable pages

4. Blocked by robots.txt

What it means: Your robots.txt file is blocking Googlebot from accessing URLs that should be crawlable.

Why it happens: Incorrect robots.txt configuration — often introduced accidentally during site migrations or development.

How to fix it:

• Review your robots.txt file at yourdomain.com/robots.txt
• Use Google Search Console's robots.txt Tester to check which URLs are being blocked
• Remove incorrect Disallow rules for pages that should be indexed
• Ensure you have not accidentally blocked your entire site with Disallow: /

5. Noindex Pages Appearing in Coverage Errors

What it means: Pages marked with a noindex tag are appearing in your submitted sitemap or being discovered and flagged.

How to fix it:

• Remove noindex pages from your XML sitemap
• Decide intentionally: either remove noindex (to allow indexing) or remove the URL from sitemap

6. Soft 404 Errors

What it means: A page returns a 200 OK status code but the content is essentially empty or irrelevant — Google treats it as a 404.

Why it happens: Search result pages with no results, category pages with no products, or thin pages with minimal content.

How to fix it:

• Add meaningful content to the page, OR
• Return a proper 404 status if the page truly has no value, OR
• Redirect to the nearest relevant page

After Fixing Errors: Request Reindexing

Once you have fixed crawl errors, do not just wait for Googlebot to rediscover the changes. Speed up the process:

1. Use Google Search Console's URL Inspection Tool to request indexing for individual important URLs
2. Submit your updated sitemap in Search Console (Index → Sitemaps)
3. Use 5minuteindexing.online to submit fixed URLs directly via the Google Indexing API — this triggers an immediate crawl and dramatically speeds up reindexing compared to waiting for Googlebot to revisit naturally

Preventing Crawl Errors Going Forward

• Set up automatic redirect rules when changing or deleting URLs
• Test your robots.txt whenever you make changes to it
• Run monthly crawl audits using Screaming Frog or Search Console
• Monitor your Coverage report weekly for new errors
• Keep your sitemap updated automatically through your CMS

Need Technical SEO Help?

Technical SEO issues like crawl errors are often invisible until they start costing you rankings. At Oktika, we conduct thorough technical SEO audits as part of our SEO service packages. Get in touch or reach us on Telegram at @Oktikasupport.

Also read: What Is Google Crawl Budget | Get Indexed by Google in 5 Minutes