People conflate two separate things here. Indexed means Google has stored the page. Noindex means the publisher has told Google not to. Check both — they have different fixes.
Is it indexed?
Search Google for the exact URL, or use `site:` with the domain plus a distinctive phrase from your release in quotes.
- The page comes back: it is indexed. Done.
- Nothing comes back: not indexed yet, or not indexed at all.
- A different copy of your release comes back instead: Google has consolidated duplicates and picked that one as canonical.
Give strong outlets a few days and mid-tier syndication up to four weeks before you conclude anything. For a batch of URLs, a bulk index checker beats doing it by hand.
Is it noindex?
Open the published page and view source, then search the HTML for `noindex`. You are looking for a robots meta tag such as `<meta name="robots" content="noindex">`.
Faster options:
- A free SEO browser extension shows the page's indexability in one click.
- Any online meta tag or header checker will report the robots directive, including the `X-Robots-Tag` HTTP header — which is easy to miss because it never appears in the HTML.
- Check the outlet's `robots.txt` for a blocked press or newsroom path.
Also check the link itself
While you are in the source, find your URL and read the `rel` attribute. That tells you whether the placement is dofollow, `nofollow`, `sponsored` or `ugc` — and whether the outlet delivered what you paid for.
Worth confirming the link is a real anchor too. Plain text with no `<a href>`, or a redirect through a tracking script, is a mention rather than a link.
What to do with the answers
- Indexed and dofollow: exactly what you wanted. Record the URL.
- Indexed and nofollow: working as expected on most wires. Value is brand and entity signals.
- Not indexed, no noindex tag: fixable. Link it from your own newsroom page, push it through an indexer, and vary future copy so duplicates stop cannibalising each other.
- Noindex tag present: not fixable by you. The publisher has opted out; that placement will never count, so stop buying that outlet.
We check this on campaigns as a matter of routine, and it is the fastest way to tell a good distribution network from a spreadsheet. Samples for every outlet we sell sit in the client dashboard so you can run these checks before you spend.