Google has confirmed it is investigating an indexing issue affecting a “small number of sites” from showing up in the Google Search results in a timely fashion. The issue seems to have started at around 11:30 pm ET Monday, January 31, where some sites noticed indexing issues with Google Search.
Google confirmation. Google posted a confirmation of the issue at 4:42 am ET this morning:
We’re investigating an issue with indexing in Google Search that’s affecting a small number of sites. Sites may experience slower than usual indexing times. We’re working on identifying the root cause. Next update will be within 12 hours.
What to do. If you notice that your new or updated content is not showing up in Google Search as quickly as it normal would, than know it is not necessarily an issue on your side. Google is having a technical issue that it is working on to fix indexing issues impacting some publishers.
Who is impacted. Google said this is affecting a “small number of sites.” But it seems like there are a lot of complaints about indexing issues over the past several hours. I posted some of those complaints on the Search Engine Roundtable blog.
Danny Sullivan, Google’s Search Liaison, did reply to one of them:
Why we care. Sadly, like any software company, Google Search has bugs. Google is working on resolving the issue. For now, hang tight and wait for Google to post that the issue is resolved to confirm that your new content is showing up in a timely fashion within Google Search.
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About the author
Barry Schwartz is 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 can be followed on Twitter here.
