It seems like Google is having a major indexing or crawling or serving issue this morning - again. Google seems to have not picked up on new content in the past hour or two. You can see sites like the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, and niche publishers like TechCrunch and The Verge are not seeing their new published content show up in the Google Search results.
Update: Google seemed to have a two hour issue where it was not indexing new content between around 4:30am ET and 6:30am ET on December 16, 2021. Google confirmed the issue at 8:20am and then at 11:30am ET Google said the issue was resolved. There was serving issue for about seven hours this morning on December 16th but now it is resolved.
Update 2: Maybe it is not fully resolved, Google tweeted:
There's an ongoing issue with our serving system in Google Search that's affecting a small number of sites.
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) December 16, 2021
We're working on fixing the root cause. Next update will be within 12 hours. ^gi
Update 3: It is now fixed:
We fixed the issue with our serving system. Newly published URLs should show up in search results at normal rates. There will be no more updates. ^gi
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) December 16, 2021
Back to our story:
Here are some screenshots where I did a site command within the past hour asking Google to show me new content from these four popular and frequently updated sites. You can click to enlarge any of these screenshots:
It seems these issues started at least an hour ago but probably longer:
Facing indexing issue for last 2 hrs.
— Abhishek Chandra Raj (@abhiraj33) December 16, 2021
I have not seen a response from Google as of yet.
So if you are having indexing issues and your new content is not currently showing up in Google Search - you are not alone.
Google had indexing or display issues in June 2020 which was a confirmed crawling issue and in May 2020, April 2020, we saw it a several times last year with several cases of this last year but maybe one this year that was not serious.
I wonder how long it will take for this piece of content to show in Google Search.
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Update: About 2 hours after this issue started, it seems like Google is starting to show new content again:
And it took more than 30 seconds for this story to be picked up but after manually requesting indexing, Google is now showing it in the search results.
Here is the screenshot of the page showing as not indexed according to Google Search Console, it was also not coming up in a site command:
But now it is showing up as "8 minutes ago":
Although as I keep refreshing it does seem that pages are dropping in and out - I assume it is being resolved now.
Update: Maybe it is not fully resolved:
There's an ongoing issue with our serving system in Google Search that's affecting a small number of sites.
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) December 16, 2021
We're working on fixing the root cause. Next update will be within 12 hours. ^gi
I am now seeing my stories new stories not being indexed, outside of this one and the Wall Street Journal (who is not a smaller publisher) is also gone again.
Update 2: Seems like Google is working on it...
Google now confirmed the issue with Google Search as a serving issue and it is STILL an issue and Google is working on resolving it https://t.co/Eu4dBCyHlp pic.twitter.com/iUWafn9VH7
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) December 16, 2021
Update 3: It is now fixed:
We fixed the issue with our serving system. Newly published URLs should show up in search results at normal rates. There will be no more updates. ^gi
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) December 16, 2021
