Google Indexation Bug Starting Around Mid-April 2020
- Thread starter becool
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Never had any issues like that myself. I was of the opinion that if they aren't reindexing as quick as you'd like then its a quality/authority issue.
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I know someone struggling with new posts being indexed, started last week. I've confirmed as far as I can tell there's nothing on the page, HTTP headers, meta tags, or htaccess, or robots.txt to cause the problem. This seems to be an on-going issue with Google over the last year or so: intermittent trouble with indexing.
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330 articles uploaded for a month. 100 indexed.
800 referring domains in total, only 35 shown in Google.
Redirects not taking effect for a month, or at least not being shown in GSC.
All in all, total shitshow.
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I'm also experiencing this indexing issue on a project. There are lots of strange things happening in serps, for example, some weird position shuffle. Initially, I've assumed that it was because of the tracker but after checking on 3 different trackers and manual search, it seems that there is some strange volatility. For trackers checking only once per day, the shuffle graph does not appear to be as aggressive.
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And another funny thing. 30 articles uploaded yesterday are all in the index. The ones from month ago still aren't. IMO it's caused by the amount of content everyone is churning during quarantine, combined with the core updated that's been rolling out today. Waiting game I suppose.
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I just checked two domains that a friend owns and were totally penalized and now rank in top5 for the main keyword. Nothing was done to them.
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I'm having annoying index issues, too. We updated the site design on 4/20/20. Since then, any new blog posts added will not index. Static web pages index just fine.
The most curious bit is that SC is telling me that the pages are available to Google:
But, when I check with the site: operator, I get nothing:
Already tweeted @ searchliason and Danny for this...but no response yet.
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@stackcash - The "site:" operator was turned semi-off on purpose. That's not how you are suppose to check if a page is in the index.
Do the following: go into google with the whole URL and type in
--
Here is a result - your page was cached on April 23, 2020 and is already in the index:
(You guys need to allow CSS files to be indexed or something)
--
Here is a cache of BuSo
--
Another solution is to input the keywords you are targeting into a rank tracker, like the exact quote of the article "How Long Does It Take To Write 1000 Words?" - if it shows up in the top 100 you should see it.
--
If you people are having indexing problems were using the "site:" operator to find out whether Google has indexed it, that was broken on purpose. I believe it happened last quarter or so - and that John Mueller guy even stated it in a tweeted that it is no longer going to work correctly or something.
Use the
Do the following: go into google with the whole URL and type in
cache:https://wordagents.com/how-long-does-it-take-to-write-1000-words/--
Here is a result - your page was cached on April 23, 2020 and is already in the index:
(You guys need to allow CSS files to be indexed or something)
--
Here is a cache of BuSo
cache:https://www.buildersociety.com/ - cached on May 4th, 2020:
--
Another solution is to input the keywords you are targeting into a rank tracker, like the exact quote of the article "How Long Does It Take To Write 1000 Words?" - if it shows up in the top 100 you should see it.
--
If you people are having indexing problems were using the "site:" operator to find out whether Google has indexed it, that was broken on purpose. I believe it happened last quarter or so - and that John Mueller guy even stated it in a tweeted that it is no longer going to work correctly or something.
Use the
cache: command going forward - IF you allow your website to be cached, I don't.
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They did, yes, however I can clearly see, that only the pages that are shown with "site:domain.tld" are actually ranking for something. Regardless whether the GSC says they are indexed.
Not to mention that Mueller has said a lot of crap over the past few years.
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I just checked out my own site. Of my last two posts, published last week one day apart, one is indexed and cached, the other isn't. At the end of the day, it's inconsequential, but something to get easily annoyed about and try to fix.
This seems like a reoccurring bug we'll run into every 6 months or so. Like the Search Console and Mobile Friendly Test bug of not loading CSS and JS and image files that's been going on for years now. ~JustGoogleThings☆★☆★
This seems like a reoccurring bug we'll run into every 6 months or so. Like the Search Console and Mobile Friendly Test bug of not loading CSS and JS and image files that's been going on for years now. ~JustGoogleThings☆★☆★
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Linkedin got removed: https://www.seroundtable.com/linkedin-removed-google-index-29408.html
Then came back: https://www.seroundtable.com/linkedin-google-return-29413.html
Best line from Google: "We're not aware that there is anything on our end causing this."
Then came back: https://www.seroundtable.com/linkedin-google-return-29413.html
Best line from Google: "We're not aware that there is anything on our end causing this."
becool
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They ought to rollback a dozen or so updates to get back to when things actually almost kind of sort of made sense.
I've had delayed indexing/reindexing for a week plus on new and old pages. I'll report back with any noteworthy developments or observations.
I like this. It isn't Google that's broken. It's LinkedIn and all the other sites.
I've had delayed indexing/reindexing for a week plus on new and old pages. I'll report back with any noteworthy developments or observations.
I like this. It isn't Google that's broken. It's LinkedIn and all the other sites.
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I've encountered some strange behavior.
So, I've added 4 posts and waited 2 days to see what happens. According to the server logs, Google visited the index sitemap(sitemap_index.xml) BUT did not visit the other included sitemaps(rankmath makes one for posts, another for pages, and so on). Even if they have the date on which they were modified.
After that, I've used the "request as Google" and "Submit to the index" to hurry the indexing process for 2 out of 4 posts. Google visited the pages but did not index them even after that. I've waited 12 hours.
It indexed the 2 pages instantly(checked with proxy and incognito) only after I've resubmitted the sitemap that contains the posts. The other 2 posts were indexed in one hour.
This behavior makes me think about the way hacked sites are used to spam content. While the content is on the server, the pages are not in the sitemap(most of the time).
So, I've added 4 posts and waited 2 days to see what happens. According to the server logs, Google visited the index sitemap(sitemap_index.xml) BUT did not visit the other included sitemaps(rankmath makes one for posts, another for pages, and so on). Even if they have the date on which they were modified.
After that, I've used the "request as Google" and "Submit to the index" to hurry the indexing process for 2 out of 4 posts. Google visited the pages but did not index them even after that. I've waited 12 hours.
It indexed the 2 pages instantly(checked with proxy and incognito) only after I've resubmitted the sitemap that contains the posts. The other 2 posts were indexed in one hour.
This behavior makes me think about the way hacked sites are used to spam content. While the content is on the server, the pages are not in the sitemap(most of the time).
becool
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Quick update. It has been two weeks since my original post regarding this issue and I'm still encountering the problem. Specifically, I cannot seem to get pages reindexed based on the last crawl date in GSC and the title tags and meta description shown in the SERPs (which is displaying outdated information). I also cannot seem to get a new page to show up in the SERPs, which I'd ordinarily view as an entirely separate problem. I first began experiencing the original issue before the recent Google update.
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What's your site's CitationFlow (or some other calculation of PageRank)? If you google your site's homepage and check it's cache, what's the date that the catch show? That's the last time Google indexed your homepage, the page with the highest PR on your whole site. The other pages would be indexed at a slower rate.
GoogleBot crawls the web according to PageRank. The higher a domain's PR, the more often it's crawled. 2 weeks might not be enough time, especially if your domain is low PR. Also, a poor site structure would make GoogleBot have a hard time finding new pages too.
NetZero
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Not that you have not been doing this too, but it has worked for me for awhile. I am getting new website updated and indexed fast. Do the normal Request Indexing, then when done, then do Test Live URL and refresh the search console page and you will see Last Crawl was moments ago. My updated content, or Title, Description will show within 24hrs in index. This works with my established sites as well as new hobby sites I slap up together and make regular changes. Hope this helps
becool
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Citation Flow is 35. The date of the cache is a week ago. Historically, I have not had any issues with indexing. When I request indexing in GSC, the last crawl date does not change.
I appreciate it. This didn't work for me, at least based on the date shown under "Last Crawl"
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It looks like this is going to be an on-going ordeal. They tried to brush it off as "we don't index low quality crap" but we know they index everything they can get their hands on, even blank pages.
EDIT - looks like they're saying they resolved the issues today. The problem started well before June the 2nd, though. Took them a while to acknowledge it, possibly to make it look like they fixed it quickly. Who knows. Index our pages!
becool
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It looks like this is going to be an on-going ordeal. They tried to brush it off as "we don't index low quality crap" but we know they index everything they can get their hands on, even blank pages.
EDIT - looks like they're saying they resolved the issues today. The problem started well before June the 2nd, though. Took them a while to acknowledge it, possibly to make it look like they fixed it quickly. Who knows. Index our pages!
It appears that they have resolved the issue, at least on my end and with respect to one of the new pages I created on an existing site (that I talked about earlier/above). By way of background, I had issues getting existing pages reindexed and at least one new page actually indexed on a site that did not previously suffer from indexation issues.