De-indexing bug hits Google Search Console reports, tools

Just when we thought we were out of the woods with Google’s de-indexing bug — we are now seeing issues related to that bug within Google Search Console. Google confirmed Monday morning that the index coverage report and the enhancement reports were not updated and the Inspector might not reflect live status of the page. This is all related to the indexing bug according to Google.

What’s the issue? The new issue is that if you look at your Google Search Console reports, specifically the index coverage report and the enhancement reports, you may not see accurate data. Over the weekend SEOs were noticing huge drops in their index coverage within the coverage report. The thing was, the report was showing the issue after the de-indexing bug was already resolved. There were similar issues with the enhancement reports in Search Console as well.

In addition, the URL Inspection tool, which is the tool Google has been telling SEOs to go to in order to check the true status of a page being indexed, also may have issues. Google said the “URL Inspector might not reflect live status.”

Here are the tweets with Google’s announcement about these issues:

What do we do? For now, there is nothing for us to do about it. We can just wait for Google to fix the issues. But being aware that there are these issues in Google Search Console is important for us to all know.

When Google fixes the issue, Google will let us know and we will let you all know.

If you want to know if a page is in Google’s index, Google is now suggesting you use the site: command, that is until Google fixes the issues listed above.

Still not indexed? We are still seeing some reports from site owners that their sites are still not fully indexed. Google has said it does not index all pages on the web. So don’t expect Google to fully index your web site. But if you do believe there is an indexing issue, you can communicate that via the Google help forums over here.

Why it matters. Understanding there are reporting issues and delays is important for us to know. Understanding that the URL Inspection tool isn’t fully working as expected is also important. We should delay sending clients reports from Google Search Console until this is resolved. We can quote Google above when communicating to clients about the reporting delays.

Most importantly, do not panic if you see something weird today in the index coverage report and the enhancement reports or in the URL Inspection tool. Wait for Google to confirm it is resolved before being concerned about any potential issues.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz

Barry Schwartz 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. Barry's personal blog is named Cartoon Barry and he can be followed on Twitter here.