Google Search is once again having indexing issues where new content is not showing in the index for all sites. Google wrote this is about a "delayed indexing in Google Search" that is "affecting a small number of sites."
Google posted this on its Search Status dashboard at 6:38 PM ET:
Google is investigating reports about delayed indexing in Google Search that's affecting a small number of sites. We're working on identifying the root cause. Next update will be within 12 hours.
Google's John Mueller later confirmed that this issue started around the time the notice was posted in the dashboard. So if you are having indexing issues from well before that time, it is unlikely related to this. John posted on Bluesky, This particular issue started around the time of the entry in the status dashboard and was/is focused on indexing, so it would surprise me if you saw effects elsewhere."
I am not seeing true examples of this specific issue posted in the Google support forums but I am seeing it when I restrict Google Search to show me content within the hour from some large news publishers:
Here are the previous Google Search bugs I covered over the past year:
- Google Ranking Teetering In & Out Over Weekends - Confirmed Bug
- Google Search Ranking Issue Fixed After 4+ Days
- Confirmed: Google Search Ranking Bug Impacting Large Number Of Results
- Google Search Bug: Not Indexing or Serving New Content Again
- Google Search Bug: Not Indexing or Serving New Content
- Google Search Working On Fixing Indexing Issue
- Google Search Having Indexing Issues - Confirmed
- Google Search Confirms Deindexing Vast Amounts Of URLs In February 2024
- Google Search Also Having Issues With Recipe Sites
Update: At 7:25 PM ET, Google seems to be recovering, and I see more new content being indexed and served in Google Search. A lot of the screenshots above, are now showing many more pages indexed from those sites within the past hour.
Plus, the story I wrote on this at Search Engine Land is indexed:
But this page, even 20 or so minutes after posting it, is still not indexed according to Google Search Console (or a query like this):
Update 25 minutes later, this story is now showing up in Google's search results:
Update Dec 10: Google found the issue and is working on it. Google wrote at 8:42am ET on December 10th, "We've identified the issue with indexing and have been working on a fix. Next update will be within 24 hours."
Update on Google Search's indexing issue - they found the issue and working on a fix - story updated at https://t.co/x0JHpTbbjQ pic.twitter.com/OVHfGdRK9O
— Barry Schwartz (@rustybrick) December 10, 2024
Update at 11:20am ET on December 10: The issue is now resolved. Google wrote, "We fixed the issue with indexing. The start and end time of this issue will be adjusted to match the actual impact. There will be no more updates."
John Mueller from Google added on Bluesky, "The issue is now resolved. It turns out, the external impact was actually resolved yesterday, so we updated the status entry to reflect that. (Internally, folks are still working on some aspects, but that doesn't affect indexing externally, so we closed it accordingly. A short one :-))"
So the issue was from December 9th at 15:38 PST to December 10th at 08:16 PS%, so this lasted for about 16 hours and 38 minutes.
