For the past few weeks or so, I have been hearing complaints from SEOs, mostly in private forums, about Google having weird indexing issues. The issues are not persistent, in that a new page is indexed, then drops out of the index, then indexed again, then drops out and then back again.
It is like Google can't make up its mind if the page should be in its index or it maybe some data centers show the page indexed and some do not. Sometimes the issue can be spotted using the URL inspection tool in Google Search Console, sometimes it can be found in the other reports or via the API or just simple Googling. This is impacting all levels of sites, from super big sites to smaller sites, all with authority - based on what I am seeing.
Now, I can share some of the public complaints since they are surfacing more and more now.
Jorch Garcia from Product Hacker posted this on Twitter "Is there any problem with the indexing? We run a 100M/month pageview site and its Homepage is randomly appearing and disappearing from the index since 29th of July."
John Mueller from Google replied he isn't aware of an issue but asked for more details:
Hey thanks for answering! The site is https://t.co/8RiTupz6NB and when you make a search with brand term "la razon" the first position is the section https://t.co/xbyumAvnKh but the homepage seems to not be in the index, while GSC tells us it is in the index.
— Jorge 🚀 (@jorch_garcia) August 9, 2021
Then Jorch shared this chart, which describes what I think others are seeing. He said "this is the pattern we are seeing lately. Green is the organic traffic to the homepage."
Glenn Gabe shared some charts from Semrush showing something similar:
Exactly :) While /espana/ folder is gaining visibility as now is the first result in brand term search. But homepage lost means we also losing some search carousels :(
— Jorge 🚀 (@jorch_garcia) August 9, 2021
John from Google did say he will pass these reports along:
Thanks -- I'll pass it on!
— 🍌 John 🍌 (@JohnMu) August 9, 2021
I did ask for more from the community but I am not sure if this is the pattern I've been hearing from others:
Yes, I too noticing some fluctuation on indexing pages. Last week its around 50k pages, now 14k.
— eijazpardhan (@eijazpardhan) August 9, 2021
I've been experiencing indexing issue since last week till date.
— Wizkid Made In Lagos Album (@litespotng) August 9, 2021
I've been having indexing issues with this site for months.
— Sam Underwood 🇬🇧 (@SamUnderwoodUK) August 10, 2021
Example URLs that flicker in and out of Google's index:
- https://t.co/0NgdjtcafW
- https://t.co/qmIYky6G6t
- https://t.co/CBGILumj7S@JohnMu
I wish I could share more specific examples - but I do think Google might be having an indexing issue where pages, not just the home page, are dropping in and out of the index.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
