Crawled But Not Indexed: What Google Actually Knows About Your Backlinks

The following is an edited transcript of a conversation that started with a simple question — "do my PBN links still work if they're not indexed?" — and turned into a deeper examination of what Google actually evaluates at crawl time, why the term "PBN" is misleading for authority-grade networks, and where the industry's assumptions fall apart under scrutiny.

The PBN Anxiety

I need to ask you something directly. I've been buying PBN links for years — including from your network. And I keep hearing from people in forums, in Slack groups, on Twitter, that PBN links are dead. That if the page isn't indexed, the link has zero value. Some people are saying Google can identify PBN networks now and just discounts everything. Should I be worried?

Let's start by pulling apart what you're actually asking, because there are three different concerns buried in that question and they each have different answers.

First — is the page indexed? Second — does Google know it's a "PBN"? Third — does the link have value? The industry treats these as the same question. They're not.

But before we get into any of that, I need to push back on the term itself. You said "PBN links." I use that term in marketing because it's what the industry searches for — it's the lingo people know. But what we actually operate isn't a PBN in the way most people understand it.

What do you mean? What's the difference?

The traditional PBN — the thing Google has been fighting for a decade — is a network of expired domains with thin, auto-generated content, no real editorial value, existing purely to pass link equity. Shared hosting, obvious footprints, no real audience, no topical depth. That model deserves every hit it's taken.

What we've built is fundamentally different. We call it an authority network because that's what it actually is. These are sites with real editorial content, topical relevance, proper structure. They're built around Google's own standards — E-E-A-T, helpful content, editorial value. The content on these sites isn't filler wrapped around a link. It's content that serves the reader, that demonstrates expertise, that has topical depth.

That distinction isn't marketing spin. It's the difference between a site Google crawls and sees thin, template content with a suspicious outbound link pattern, versus a site Google crawls and sees topically relevant editorial content that happens to link out to relevant resources — including your site.

What Google Actually Evaluates at Crawl Time

Okay, but even if the content is good — if the page isn't indexed, does the link still do anything?

This is where the industry has created a false binary. "Indexed = valuable, not indexed = worthless." It's more nuanced than that.

Here's what's confirmed — not debated, not inferred, confirmed by Google's own Search Relations team. Crawling and indexing are separate processes. Google crawls far more pages than it indexes. Googlebot visits a page, processes the content, follows outbound links, encounters anchor text, registers the referring domain. All of that happens at crawl time, before any indexation decision is made.

A page not being indexed means Google decided it wasn't worth showing as a search result. That's a content surfacing decision, not a signal processing decision. Google didn't ignore what was on the page — it chose not to display the page to searchers.

But doesn't that mean the link doesn't pass PageRank?

This is where I have to be honest with you, because the industry isn't being honest about this. The prevailing expert view is that direct PageRank transfer likely requires the source page to be indexed. That's based on Google's Nearest Seed PageRank patent, which describes a system that evaluates pages based on proximity to trusted seed pages — and that system logically operates on the indexed web.

But here's what nobody tells you: there is no empirical data confirming this. Google has never made a direct public statement saying links from crawled-but-not-indexed pages don't pass value. The patent describes a mechanism, not a confirmed implementation. And Google holds thousands of patents it doesn't use.

What we can measure is different. Referring domain counts in Google Search Console reflect links Google has crawled — not exclusively links from indexed pages. You can verify this yourself. Build links on pages that aren't indexed, check GSC six weeks later. The referring domains show up. Google is recording the relationship.

Whether authority flows through that relationship is the part nobody outside Google can answer with certainty. Anyone telling you definitively yes or definitively no is selling something.

Why Authority Sites Change the Equation

So if PageRank transfer is uncertain, why does it matter whether the site is an authority network or a traditional PBN?

Because PageRank isn't the only thing Google processes at crawl time. And this is where the quality of what's on the page changes everything.

When Google crawls a traditional thin PBN page, here's what it encounters: a template layout, filler content, and an outbound link. The contextual signals surrounding that link are essentially zero. There's no topical relevance, no editorial depth, no E-E-A-T signals. Even if Google processes the link data, there's nothing around it that tells Google this link exists within a meaningful editorial context.

When Google crawls a page on an authority-grade site — real content, topical depth, editorial structure — the contextual signals are fundamentally different. The link sits within relevant content. The anchor text appears in a natural editorial context. The surrounding language reinforces topical relevance. Google encounters a page that looks like what it wants the web to be — helpful, authoritative, well-structured content that serves a reader.

That's been the entire build philosophy since the 2024 and 2025 core updates. Google told us exactly what they're looking for — E-E-A-T, helpful content, editorial value, topical authority. We built the network around those standards. Not because we're trying to game an algorithm, but because sites that meet those standards are the sites Google trusts. That's not a loophole. That's alignment.

But if Google's getting smarter at identifying networks, doesn't that still put you at risk?

Google identifies networks by looking for the things that make traditional PBNs obvious — shared hosting infrastructure, thin content, identical templates, unnatural link topologies, expired domain manipulation with no content investment. Those are the footprints.

An authority network built with unique editorial content, topical depth, proper E-E-A-T signals, and natural link patterns doesn't have those footprints. It looks like what it is — a collection of content sites that link to relevant resources. That's what half the web is. The New York Times links to sources. Industry blogs link to tools. Niche publications link to businesses in their space. An authority network with genuine editorial value operates the same way.

What matters to Google isn't who owns the site. It's what's on the page. Real content, real structure, topical relevance, editorial value. That's what Google evaluates at crawl time, and that's what determines whether the signals around your link carry weight.

Deindexed vs. Never Indexed

One more thing I keep hearing — people use "deindexed" and "not indexed" interchangeably. Is there a difference?

A big one, and conflating them leads to bad conclusions.

Crawled but not indexed means Google visited the page, processed its content, and decided it wasn't worth showing as a search result. It never appeared in the index. This is a neutral editorial decision — Google makes this call on billions of pages across the web, including pages on major authority domains. It doesn't imply anything negative about the site.

Deindexed means the page was in the index and Google actively removed it. That's a different signal entirely. It implies a qualitative judgment changed — either the page degraded, a policy shifted, or an algorithm update reclassified it. Deindexation can carry negative connotations: manual actions, spam detection, quality reclassification.

When people say "my PBN links got deindexed," they usually mean the pages were never indexed in the first place — which is expected for many page types across the web. But they're using language that implies Google took action against the site, which is a much more serious claim.

For authority network pages specifically — a page with solid editorial content that gets crawled but not indexed is in the same situation as millions of legitimate pages across the web that Google crawls regularly but doesn't surface in search results. The crawl still happens, the content is still processed, and the signals on the page are still encountered by Googlebot.

Where's the Data?

I appreciate the honesty, but let me push you on this. Is there actual data backing up the idea that these links have value — or is this all theory?

Here's exactly what we have, separated into what's verifiable and what's inferred.

So three of the four signal types are directly observable. The fourth — which happens to be the one the entire industry fixates on — is the one nobody can prove either way.

And here's the part nobody's talking about: even the PageRank question looks different when the source page has real editorial value. Google's systems evaluate page quality at crawl time. A page with genuine E-E-A-T signals, topical depth, and editorial structure is being evaluated differently than a thin template page — regardless of whether either page makes it into the index. We don't know exactly how that evaluation translates to link signals, but the input Google is processing is fundamentally different.

The Right Question

So what should I actually be looking at when I evaluate my backlinks?

Stop asking "is my backlink indexed?" and start asking "what is Google encountering when it crawls this page?"

If the answer is a thin template with a link and nothing else — yeah, you should be concerned. Not because the link is necessarily worthless, but because there's nothing on that page giving Google a reason to value the signals surrounding your link.

If the answer is a page with real editorial content, topical relevance, E-E-A-T signals, and your link sitting naturally within that context — you're in a fundamentally different position. Google is encountering a page that meets its own quality standards, and your link exists within that context.

The industry made two mistakes. First, treating all non-indexed links identically — a thin template page and an authority-grade editorial page are not the same thing just because neither is indexed. Second, calling everything a "PBN" when the range of what that term covers is enormous. A network of expired domains with spun content and a network of authority sites with genuine editorial value are as different as a strip mall and a university library. Calling them both "PBNs" makes it impossible to have an honest conversation about what actually works.

Google still crawls what it won't index. What value that carries depends entirely on what's on the page when Google gets there. We built the network around that principle — not around tricking Google, but around giving Google exactly what it says it wants to see.