There is a confirmed indexing issue in Google Search prior to 7 am ET this morning. None of the articles I posted this morning on this site are showing yet in Google Search, even when I search for it by the exact title or do a site command. Google is not indexing new, freshly published, content as of earlier this morning. Google later confirmed with the Search Engine Roundtable that the search engine has "an ongoing issue with indexing in Google Search that's affecting a large number of sites."
This issue at 4 pm ET started to improve and it looks like Google had this indexing outage for about ten hours on July 15, 2022.
This is across both Google Search and Google News where Google is not showing new content as of this morning.
Timeline
- Before 7 am ET a Google bug led to new content not being indexed by Google
- 10:50 am ET Google confirmed there is an issue with indexing
- 3:00 pm ET Google identified the issue and is working on a fix
- 4 pm ET we are starting to see new content show up in the Google Search index
- 2:00 am the following day, Google confirmed the issues are fully resolved
More Details On Google's July 15th Indexing Issues
The Wall Street Journal is not showing any new content in Google Search in the past hour either. Nor is the New York Times, The Verge, or other news sites that pump out new content constantly.
Here are screenshots using site commands restricting news to the past hour, showing no new content is being shown from these sites - click to enlarge the images. Note, to test this, filter the Google results to just show content within the past hour.
Hat tip to Zain Alkhadi on Twitter for spotting this so early.
Digging in, content that Google normally would rank from this site within minutes of it being published is being crawled by Google according to Google Search Console but it is not currently in the index - which again is unusual. Here is a screenshot of one story from about an hour ago:
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 December 2021 and 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.
Do you all see this issue?
Update: Google has now confirmed the issue:
There's an ongoing issue with indexing in Google Search that's affecting a large number of sites. Sites may experience delayed indexing. We're working on identifying the root cause. Next update will be within 12 hours.
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) July 15, 2022
Just a note, GA4 real-time analytics also seems broken but Universal Analytics 3 does seem fine. So keep that in mind when looking at your analytics.
Update #2: Google said they found the issue at 3 pm and are now working on a fix:
We've identified the issue with indexing and we're working on a fix. Next update will be within 12 hours.
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) July 15, 2022
Update #3: At 4 pm ET I am starting to see new content start to show up in the Google Search results:
Update #4:
Going offline now, but it seems the Google Search indexing issue is pretty much resolved for Google Search and Google News https://t.co/8ydxbvuRm4 pic.twitter.com/1xCiKMHRDz
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) July 15, 2022
Update #5:
We fixed the issue with indexing. There will be no more updates. ^gi
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) July 16, 2022
Forum discussion at Twitter.
