“Submitted URL not indexed” appears when a URL in your sitemap has not been included. The word submitted is what makes it feel like a contradiction: you told Google about the page and it declined. Submission is a request, not an instruction.
Read the accompanying reason
This is a category rather than a diagnosis. Search Console pairs it with a specific reason, and that reason determines everything.
- Crawled, currently not indexed: read and passed over. A content judgement.
- Discovered, currently not indexed: not yet fetched. A crawl capacity problem.
- Excluded by noindex: your sitemap and your directive contradict each other.
- Duplicate, no user-selected canonical: consolidated into another URL.
- Soft 404: the page reports success while appearing empty.
- Blocked by robots.txt: another self-contradiction between sitemap and directive.
The contradictions worth fixing first
Three of those reasons mean your sitemap disagrees with your own configuration, which is worth resolving before anything else.
- A noindexed URL in the sitemap: decide whether you want it indexed, then align both.
- A robots-blocked URL in the sitemap: same.
- A URL that canonicalises elsewhere: the sitemap should list canonical URLs only.
These are cheap to fix and they undermine the credibility of the rest of your sitemap. See XML sitemaps.
When it is a genuine judgement
Where the reason is crawled-not-indexed, nothing is contradictory. Google fetched the page and decided it added nothing beyond what is already indexed. Submission does not change that assessment, and resubmitting will not either.
- Check whether the page duplicates something you already have.
- Check whether it is thin relative to what ranks.
- Check how many internal links point at it, since sitemap-only pages read as unimportant.
- See internal links and indexing.
What does not help
- Resubmitting the sitemap unchanged.
- Requesting indexing repeatedly on the same unchanged page.
- Adding the URL to more sitemaps.
- Making a trivial edit to trigger a recrawl without changing what the page offers.
Frequently asked questions
Why submit a sitemap if Google ignores it?
It is not ignored. It aids discovery and gives you indexation reporting per segment, which is its most practical benefit. What it does not do is compel inclusion.
How many submitted URLs should be indexed?
Most of them, if the sitemap lists only canonical, indexable pages you genuinely want found. A large gap usually means the sitemap is listing things it should not.
Should I remove unindexed URLs from the sitemap?
Remove ones that should not be indexed anyway. Keep ones you want indexed and address why they are not, since removing them hides the problem rather than solving it.
Does this hurt my site?
Not directly. It indicates either a contradiction in your configuration or pages that are not earning inclusion. Both are worth resolving, neither is a penalty.
Consulting CTA
If a large share of your submitted URLs are not indexed, book an SEO consultation for a sitemap and indexation review.