How would you identify index bloat?

Compare:

Indexed URLs

against:

valuable, intentional, indexable URL inventory.

Look for:

• internal search pages;
• parameter URLs;
• duplicate pages;
• thin archive pages;
• obsolete pages;
• generated combinations;
• soft 404-like pages.

Then determine whether these URLs are actually appearing in Google's index and whether they create a meaningful search-management problem.

The goal is not the smallest possible index. It is an index containing the pages that should represent the site in Search.