Search Console: Trying to find out number of pages of a domain .

[Pepper82]

Hi all,

I'm trying to figure out the total number of pages on my domain right now. Can anyone explain to me how exactly Search Console counts here?

screenshot
[i.imgur.com...]

Do the indexed pages include redirects (which I don't want to count)?
Is there perhaps a clearer, simpler way to count the total number of actual pages on a domain (without redirects) ?

[Dimitri]

I doubt that Google is counting redirects, this wouldn't make sense... a redirect is NOT a page.

As for your question, this is your site, you are supposed to know how many pages you have ...

At the Search Console, this will only show how many pages Google is aware about, at this time. This number can change over the time, Google discovers new pages, and also forgets about some too.

[not2easy]

Not all domains are created the same way. Are you concerned about individual document pages or URLs? I mean, if you create 6 pages on a WP site, you will have a few dozen different URLs. If the site is dynamically generated there may be thousands of pages and the number might vary from day to day.

If your CMS does not provide a sitemap you might try using a distributed robot. To assist you in finding a clear, simple way to know the number of pages, it helps to understand how the pages are generated.

[tangor]

Fairly easy to do with static sites and access to the folders. :)

Site logs can tell you WHICH (and how many) pages were accessed each reporting period, but will not tell you how many pages in total are on the site.

CMS structures might have several URLS for the same content, so counting URLS might not give you an accurate count.

But search console will never give you the full count, only the count of what they have found (and not indexed) or found (and indexed) or some combination of both.

That said, you should know how many actual pages you have.

Sitemaps come very close to counting all the pages, but I personally don't use them.

[lucy24]

Only you can decide what counts as a page. For example, if your widgets come in an array of colors and sizes, there may be different URLs for each version:
/widgets/purple/small/
/widgets/green/small/
/widgets/green/xlarge/
and so on, but at base it's all the same page. G###'s opinion on what counts as a page may well be different from yours.

[Dimitri]

The question might be, why do you need to find the number of pages of your domain ? Depending of the reason, there might be ways to tell.

[tangor]

This is true. I have pages ancient that I no longer watch, being evergreen and not often accessed, yet are PART of the total month after month. Tracking NEW PAGES gives a more important metric to audience and interest. However ALL THE PAGES are important, so knowing what you have, and where, is a necessity.

If one has ordinary shared hosting, and is not using a database driven CMS of some kind (ie Static HTML) just draw down your folder listings and filter for the content, exclude the images and sidebars/includes, and you will get your number.

[Kendo]

If the question is about how many pages has Google indexed, then that answer can be found in Google webmaster stats. For example I might have 300 pages on my site linked from the home page and Google may have indexed 230.

On other sites I might only have 6-30 web pages and after submitting a sitemap.xml at GWT I do find that all pages have been indexed.

[Pepper82]

I need to find out the number of pages because we need to manually copy / paste content from old to new site. And I need to know if it is worth to automate this (which costs a lot of mone) or not. So the number of indexed pages is without redirected pages?

[tangor]

The redirect effectively makes the "old page" disappear, if done properly, so yes.

[tangor]

Separate question: Why move pages copy/paste? Most of us just upload the existing site to the new host via ftp or whatever...

Need a little more information of what you are trying to do, static, cms, platforms, etc.

[Dimitri]

I need to find out the number of pages because we need to manually copy / paste content from old to new site. And I need to know if it is worth to automate this (which costs a lot of mone) or not.

It makes things clearer. I guess you are changing CMS, don't you?

So the number of indexed pages is without redirected pages?

Yes. But do not ignore pages which are reported as "known but not indexed".

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

I doubt that Google is counting redirects, this wouldn't make sense... a redirect is NOT a page.

About Google making sense...

Try moving a page from an old site to a new site and redirecting that single URL. You'll see the old-site URL appear in your new-site search console under incoming links. Not only that but it will say you have lots of incoming links from the old-site, one for every page linked FROM the page being redirected, incl navigation.

It makes NO sense, you'd think if anything it would count a backlink for pages linking TO the old-page but nope, every page it linked TO, before it was removed and redirected, also becomes a backlink according to search console.

As for number of pages according to search console, they only report pages receiving Google traffic under the "pages" tab. For a more accurate number try the sitemap file report, assuming you keep all important pages up to date on it.

[nickZ]

Usually the site:yoursite.com shows what is in the index, only the last result page will get you an approximate number though. Google fails to repair the Site querry request.

[Sgt_Kickaxe]

Coming soon: "Hey chatGPT-27, how many pages does my site have?". Besides the index page it has...

- 12 articles
- 11 non-canonical versions
- 10 broken pages
- 9 support pages
- 8 unreachable pages
- 7 password-protected pages
- 6 category pages
- 5 tag pages
- 4 author pages
- 3 sitemaps
- 2 turtle-doves
- 1 partridge in a pear tree

Also, if you use a CMS, the accurate number of pages is in the database tables. Exclude drafts and revisions when checking. You don't need a 3rd party for everything :) [webmasterworld.com...]

[nickZ]

you only need to make sure its accurate which with GPT is not that sure.