Google Search Console Bug Labelled Pages As Indexed When Not Indexed

Google just announced that it fixed a bug with Google Search Console that labeled pages as being indexed when they were not indexed. Google said this bug “affected many properties”.

Google wrote on Twitter “Today we fixed a Search Console issue that affected many properties: we were reporting pages that are not indexed as being indexed.”

Google said, “as a consequence, you might see a drop in your indexed pages in the Index Coverage report.”

Today we fixed a Search Console issue that affected many properties: we were reporting pages that are not indexed as being indexed. As a consequence, you might see a drop in your indexed pages in the Index Coverage report.

— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) August 17, 2022

So make sure to check your coverage report in Google Search Console to see if there are any major changes in the indexed versus not indexed report.

This is not going to be a fun bug for many SEOs to report on to their clients or stakeholders. For all of you who were telling your clients X pages of the site is indexed by Google and now you need to tell them that only Y pages were indexed, that is not going to be fun.

Google also updated its issues page to write “August 17th – Search Console has corrected an internal problem where our systems were mislabeling the index status of some pages. As a result, some sites may see a decrease in the number of indexed URLs on their site. This does not reflect a change in user behavior, only a correction in the reporting.”

🙄 https://t.co/xQY3L5xZTy

— Carlota ☠ (@carlotagalvan) August 17, 2022

Ooops🫢 https://t.co/FXrn2sVKTx

— Dr. Marie Haynes🐧 (@Marie_Haynes) August 17, 2022

Oh boy. This should be interesting. GSC was reporting pages that aren’t indexed as indexed and that’s now corrected. So you might see a drop in indexed pages. Keep an eye on your Coverage reporting. https://t.co/wUSgtV5hEL

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 17, 2022

Also worth noting that GSC data is showing up to 8/15 now, so this change will show up with the 8/17 data I guess. Again, keep your eye on your Coverage reporting. You might see indexed pages drop. https://t.co/9EiaxyYKVY

— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) August 17, 2022

Forum discussion at Twitter.