Did Retitled Posts Get Indexed? 27% vs. 2% Over 14 Days
Published
This article was first published in Korean by Intrix Lab on September 9, 2026.
When we rechecked 100 posts that had long remained unindexed after 14 days, 12 of the 44 posts whose titles and target keywords had been changed (27%) had entered the index. Only 1 of the 56 untouched posts (2%) had entered the index. The difference was 25 percentage points, but this was not a randomized experiment, so it cannot establish a causal effect of retargeting. These are the results of a Search Console recheck of one legal blog as of 2026-09-08.
Why compare only 100 of the original 169 posts?
The first measurement took place on 2026-08-25. The population consisted of 169 posts that had been published at least 30 days earlier and had received 0 search impressions in the preceding 28 days. We checked the same URLs again on 2026-09-08 to track status changes over 14 days.
At the first measurement, 69 posts were already indexed. We narrowed the comparison to the remaining 100 unindexed posts. These posts had either been discovered but not crawled, or their inspection results reported that the URL was unknown. Including the 69 already indexed posts in the denominator would obscure the proportion newly entering the index.
How were 27% and 2% calculated?
There were 44 unindexed posts whose titles and target keywords had been changed. Of these, 12 changed to indexed status in the second inspection. Dividing 12 by 44 gives 27%.
During the same period, 56 unindexed posts had no changes to their titles or target keywords. Only 1 post in this group changed to indexed status, yielding 2%. Because both groups were on the same domain and rechecked on the same day, we could align the measurement timing and inspection tool.
How did the overall indexing status change?
Across all 169 posts, the number of indexed posts rose from 69 to 82. The number not crawled changed from 77 to 75, and the number with unknown URL status changed from 23 to 12. No previously indexed posts dropped out of the index.
A total of 13 posts were newly indexed, 12 of them from the retargeted group. Meanwhile, 87 posts remained unindexed after the second inspection. All 87 had been published at least 60 days earlier and had received 0 impressions in the preceding 28 days.
Can we attribute the effect solely to retargeting?
No. The retargeted group was not selected randomly. We selected posts from groups with overlapping keywords and changed their titles and targets, so their characteristics may have differed from the unchanged group from the start.
The sitemap was also fixed on 2026-08-25, within the same observation window. In the unchanged group, which received only sitemap resubmission and indexing requests, just 1 of 56 posts changed status. But this comparison alone cannot fully separate the effects of the sitemap and retargeting. What we observed here was a difference in rates of change between two groups, not the size of an isolated effect.
How far should we trust these results?
The population consisted of 169 posts on one legal blog. The core comparison sample was the 100 posts that were unindexed at the first inspection, and the observation period was 14 days. There is no guarantee that the same 27% and 2% would appear in other industries, on other domains, or for newer posts.
Group assignment was not random, and the timing of two interventions overlapped. These data therefore show only that, among long-unindexed posts, there was a large difference between the group whose content signals changed and the group whose signals did not. Title retargeting and sitemap maintenance do not guarantee search rankings, AI citations, or search impressions.
What should the next measurement separate?
In the next observation, unindexed posts should be matched using the same criteria before being divided into retargeted and unchanged groups. Sitemap changes should also be placed in a separate observation window. That would allow differences following title and target changes to be separated from other interventions.
These results provide a baseline for that follow-up measurement. In its free SEO and GEO audit, Intrix also examines current observations and the evidence behind assessments separately for each URL. This is why we measure again with the same tool instead of treating a single indexing status as a performance outcome.
Frequently asked questions (FAQ)
Q. Does this mean changing a title alone will get a post indexed?
No. In this observation, both titles and target keywords were changed, and posts were not randomly selected for retargeting. The 27% is a 14-day observation for this one group.
Q. Which posts were used as the denominators for 27% and 2%?
We used only the 100 posts that were unindexed at the first inspection on 2026-08-25. At the recheck on 2026-09-08, 12 of the 44 retargeted posts and 1 of the 56 unchanged posts had changed to indexed status.
Q. Can we conclude that sitemap resubmission had no effect?
No. The sitemap fix overlapped with the same observation window. We confirmed that only 1 post changed status in the unchanged group, but this was not an experiment that fully separated the effects of the sitemap and retargeting.