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Google can fetch the pages it tries to crawl
seo.gsc-fetch-failed
Why this matters
Google reports separately on whether it could fetch a page at all, as opposed to whether it decided to index it. A fetch that fails — a server error, a redirect loop, a page returning 'not found' — means Google has nothing to work with, and repeated failures cause it to try less often. This is worth knowing precisely because it is intermittent: the page may load perfectly when you check it.
Who fixes it
A developer
Roughly how long
a few hours
Care needed
Test before and after
How to fix it
Match the state Google reports against your server logs for the same URL around the time of its last crawl. A server error points at load or at a specific request pattern; 'not found' on a page that exists usually means a rewrite rule or a case-sensitive path; a redirect error means a loop or a chain that is too long. If the failures cluster in time rather than by URL, the cause is the server being unavailable rather than anything about the pages, and rate limiting that catches Googlebot is the usual culprit.
How we score it
Failing this check takes up to 20 points off your search score. It is a fact about your site rather than a measurement, so it reads the same on every scan until you change something.
Does your site pass this one?
This check runs on every scan, along with the other 106. Free, no account, and you see the evidence for each result.
Check my siteOther search checks
- Canonical tags point somewhere validA canonical tag tells Google which address is the real one for a page. When it points somewhere wrong — another domain, a dead page, or the wrong protocol — Google follows it anyway, and the page you wanted indexed can be dropped in favour of one that does not exist.
- Content has been updated recentlySome content is meant to sit still, and age alone is not a fault. But prices, opening hours and staff pages that have not been touched in over a year are usually wrong by now — and a visitor who acts on the wrong opening hours does not come back to check whether the rest was right.
- Descriptions are a sensible lengthLong descriptions get truncated mid-sentence; very short ones waste the space you are given.
- Each page has exactly one title tagA page can only have one title. When there are several, the browser and Google each pick one — and they do not always pick the same one, so what you see in the tab may not be what appears in search.
- Each page has one main headingSeveral top-level headings makes the structure of the page ambiguous. Worth checking rather than urgent — modern HTML permits it, and Google handles it, but it usually signals that headings are being chosen for their size.
- Every page has a main headingThe h1 is the headline of the page. Without one, both visitors skimming and search engines parsing the page have nothing telling them what it is about.