Google

Bug? Google Sitemap index counts drop across Search Console reports

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There are widespread reports of webmasters complaining that the sitemap report in the Google Search Console shows a significant drop in the number of pages indexed over the past 24 hours.

Many webmasters see in this report that the number of pages Google says they have indexed on their website is now about 25 percent lower than it was the day before. Of course, the fewer pages indexed, the less opportunity to rank for more pages and keyword phrases.

Here is a screen shot of my report, but all the screen shots I’ve seen circulating look similar:

google-sitemap-drop-count-1463138796

Google has not commented on this issue, but I wanted to report it so those who are worried can know they are in good company and that this seems to be a bug on Google’s end.

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About the author

Barry Schwartz
Barry Schwartz is a technologist and a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics.

In 2019, Barry was awarded the Outstanding Community Services Award from Search Engine Land, in 2018 he was awarded the US Search Awards the "US Search Personality Of The Year," you can learn more over here and in 2023 he was listed as a top 50 most influential PPCer by Marketing O'Clock.

Barry can be followed on X here and you can learn more about Barry Schwartz over here or on his personal site.