Arrow “Success” means Google fetched and read the submitted sitemap without errors. “Discovered pages” counts the page URLs parsed from that sitemap. Neither status confirms that all listed pages were crawled, indexed or shown in search results. Use the indexing reports and URL Inspection to investigate those later stages.
Read each status at its own level
The sitemap report answers whether the file could be processed and which URLs it supplied. URL Inspection answers questions about a selected URL. A live test can show that a page is currently accessible without establishing that the indexed version has already changed.
When a fetch fails, verify the public response, XML structure, redirects and access rules. Correct an actual problem and resubmit where appropriate. Do not label an accepted submission as a completed search appearance.
Use the report to select a useful investigation
Start with important pages that are missing from the index or have an unexpected canonical. Compare the visible page, its metadata and the report’s explanation. An old or duplicate catalog page may not need to compete as an independent landing page.
Keep the sitemap limited to the URLs you intend engines to consider. For an answer hub, this usually means the current answer pages and useful collections, rather than every historical excerpt or filtered search state.
What to check
- Check that the submitted sitemap lists the intended canonical URLs.
- Inspect a representative URL and distinguish indexed information from a live accessibility test.
- Use the page indexing report to investigate excluded pages instead of repeatedly submitting the same sitemap.
A practical example
A sitemap can show Success with 56 discovered pages while the homepage is still unknown to Google’s index. Both observations can be accurate: the first concerns reading a URL list, and the second concerns indexing a particular page.
Sources and further reading
These steps are Arrow AI's implementation guidance. The example is illustrative; it is not a measured customer result. Publication and source access do not guarantee an AI recommendation.
Apply this to your website
Identify the source gaps and decide what to improve with Arrow's free audit. Review what Arrow GEO measures before choosing a reporting scope.