Google is experiencing a major issue at the moment which is preventing new content from being indexed in search results.
The bug was spotted earlier this morning, and is especially evident when using the ‘Past hour’ search filter.
UPDATE: Google says the issue has been fixed. Read more in: Google Index Issues Resolved – What Happened?
Looks to me as if Google stopped indexing (news?) an hour ago. Noticed at first with our pages but seems to be true for everyone (see screenshot) @searchliaison @JohnMu can you confirm this? pic.twitter.com/UlSCI5LVi7
— Valentin Pletzer (@VorticonCmdr) May 22, 2019
Google has now confirmed it’s experiencing indexing issues and provide more information when it’s available.
Here’s Google’s statement:
“We’re currently experiencing indexing issues that may cause stale search results in some cases. We’ll update this thread when we can provide more information.”
So this is about as big as indexing issues can get, save for the entire index vanishing.
Not to mention its far from Google’s only indexing issue as of late. Just last month there was an ongoing indexing error which caused a significant number of pages to be deindexed.
Around the same time that error was resolved, another issue was found that affected the indexed pages report. It took over two weeks for that error to be fixed, and data during the time the error occurred is now unusable.
With all these errors happening around the same time, one can’t help but wonder if these might be signs of a much larger issue.
My colleague Roger Montti suggests all these errors might be the painful side effects of an infrastructure update.
Another concern is the length of time it’s taking Google to fix these errors. With a problem as serious as new content not being indexed it would be nice to know we could rely on Google to fix it in a timely manner.
Unfortunately, if Google’s recent track record is anything to go by, this problem may linger for several days.
I will certainly be watching this closely and will update this post when the issue is either resolved or more information is available.
