Why does a redirected page sometimes still show in search?
- Published November 6, 2026
- Linked from 1 answer
- In a cluster of 51
An old URL can keep showing because Google has not yet recrawled it and processed the redirect; before assuming that, check the HTTP response, since a redirect that is temporary, points to the wrong place or conflicts with a canonical can also keep the old URL in results. Search results update when Google revisits the old address, sees the redirect, and moves the target into its place. Google’s site move guidance sets the expectation for a whole site: for medium-sized sites “it can take a few weeks or more for Google to gradually start showing the new URLs instead of the old ones (and for larger sites, even longer).” A single page follows the same process on a shorter scale.
First, confirm the redirect is real
Before waiting, check that Google actually receives a permanent redirect:
- Request the old URL with a header checker or your browser’s network panel and confirm the response is a permanent 301 redirect, not a temporary 302.
- Confirm the target returns a 200 status in one hop.
- Inspect the old URL in Search Console. Once processed, the Page indexing report lists it as “Page with redirect”, which Google describes as a URL that redirects elsewhere and is therefore not indexed.
If the old URL answers with a temporary redirect, Google’s redirects documentation explains that Googlebot follows it but the indexing pipeline does not treat it as a signal that the target should be canonical. The target can still be indexed if other signals point to it, but nothing in a temporary redirect asks Google to drop the old URL in its favor.
What keeps the old URL in the picture longer
| Loose end | Effect | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| Internal links still point at the old URL | Your own site keeps presenting it as a live page | Link to the target directly |
| The sitemap still lists the old URL | You are submitting a page that no longer exists as such | List the target instead |
| The target only partly matches the old page | Google has less reason to treat the move as a true replacement | Redirect to the closest match |
| Other signals favor the old URL, such as a canonical that still names it | Google weighs conflicting hints | Make every signal name the target |
When the listing will not go away
If the old URL still appears after Google has recrawled it, look at what the listing is. A site search that shows the old address does not prove it ranks for anything; for the ranking side of the same process, read what happens to rankings when you 301 a URL. Check the target’s queries in the Performance report: if the target is picking up the old page’s searches, the move is working, whatever a stray listing shows.
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