Google Search ‘Site:’ Command is Broken [Update: Fixed]

Update: Google has confirmed this issue is fixed.

Today we became aware of an issue that impacted some navigational and site: operator searches. We investigated & have since fixed the bug. Contrary to some speculation, this did not target particular sites or political ideologies….

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) July 21, 2020

Google’s Danny Sullivan also quells some speculation that this issue specifically targeted particular sites.

“Today’s issue affected sites representing a range of content and different viewpoints,” Sullivan says in a separate tweet.

The original story continues below:

There’s currently an issue with the ‘site:’ command in Google Search that may fail to show a site’s indexed content.

Google’s Danny Sullivan confirms the issue is being investigated, along with any other potential issues related to the ‘site:’ command not working.

We are aware of an issue with the site: command that may fail to show some or any indexed pages from a website. We are investigating this and any potentially related issues.

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) July 21, 2020

The ‘site:’ command is designed to help searchers find all pages within a site that contain a specific word or phrase.

It’s a command that that is commonly used by SEOs to perform various tasks, but the command can be used by anyone.

If you’re using the ‘site:’ command to find content within your own site, be aware that some or all content may not be found regardless of whether it’s properly indexed.

This is not an issue with Google’s index, it’s an issue with the command itself.

Content that currently cannot be found with the ‘site:’ command can still be surfaced with other queries.

At least that’s true according to what we know at this point.

After Google’s investigation it may come to light that there are other issues related to this one, but let’s not worry about that until we have to.

This is a developing story.

Updates to this article will be published as soon as more information becomes available.