# Why is my space still indexed in search engines after I unpublished it?

Google's search engine takes time to update its index, which means that if you have unpublished or unindexed a space recently, it may still appear in search results for a while.

The exact amount of time it takes for Google to remove a page from its index can vary depending on several factors, such as the frequency with which Google crawls your website, the number of other websites that link to the page, and the popularity of the page.

### **Requesting Google to re-crawl your space**

If you're concerned that a space is still visible in search results after you've unpublished or unindexed it, you can request a re-crawl from Google Search Console.

1. Sign in to Google Search Console.
2. Select for your website.
3. Click on the **URL Inspection** tab.
4. Enter the URL of the page you want to re-crawl.
5. Click on the **request indexing** button.

<figure><img src="/files/rhv8fHJugIbBV5Cxio4k" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

Google will review your request and re-crawl the page.

Once this action has been completed, it will remove it from its index if it is no longer published or indexed.

{% hint style="info" %}
You can check if your site is still indexed by using the "site: " operator followed by your website's URL in the Google search bar.\
\
If your site is indexed, you will see a list of all of the pages on your site that have been indexed.

For example, to check if gitbook.com/docs is indexed, you would type:

<pre class="language-markup" data-full-width="false"><code class="lang-markup"><strong>site:gitbook.com/docs
</strong></code></pre>

{% endhint %}


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