SEARCHENGINES
Google Search Console Updates Reports To Show Invalid Or Valid Classifications

Google has just announced that it updated its reports in Search Console to show if an error is invalid or valid in terms of it being an issue for Google to process for indexing and ranking. This is being done to better communicate if an error is causing an issue with appearing in Google Search or not.
Google wrote “we are grouping the top-level item (a rich result for the rich result reports, a page or URL for the other reports) into two groups: pages or items with critical issues are labeled something like invalid; pages or items without critical issues are labeled something like valid.” Google said they are doing this to “make it easier to see quickly which issues affect your site’s appearance on Google, in order to help you prioritize your fixes.”
Here is what it looks like before and after – click to enlarge:
These changes will be visible in the coverage report, enhancement reports and URL inspection tool, and maybe others?
The change will take time to show up in the API, Google said these will be “updated in the URL Inspection API when we complete the rollout in a few months.” “This means that if your property shows the updated item classification in Search Console, you might see differences when comparing results from the product interface and the API. Note that after the rollout is complete, there will be no new values in the API.” Google said they will update us when the API is fully updated.
Daniel Waisberg from Google said “This is a great change, a lot of thinking went into it! 🤓 But remember: this is “only” a reporting change in Search Console; there are no changes in how Google crawls, indexes, or serves your pages.”
This is a great change, a lot of thinking went into it! 🤓 But remember: this is “only” a reporting change in Search Console; there are no changes in how Google crawls, indexes, or serves your pages. https://t.co/hpIsKMOZtk
— Daniel Waisberg (@danielwaisberg) June 15, 2022
Google posted more details on this change over here explaining “the URLs or items in the report are no longer grouped at the top level by three or more status categories (for example: Valid, Warning, and Error), but are instead grouped into two broad statuses reflecting whether they are invalid or not (where invalid means that there is a report-specific critical issue in the page or item, and not invalid means that the item might still contain warnings, but has no critical issues). The implications and exact terms for the valid and invalid states varies by report type.”
These are the reports impacted by this change:
- Core Web Vitals
- Mobile Usability
- AMP report
- Rich results report
- URL Inspection tool
Forum discussion at Twitter.
Source: www.seroundtable.com
SEARCHENGINES
Google Search Console Verification Does Not Impact Your Ranking In Google Search

Gary Illyes of Google said in the Google SEO office-hours from yesterday that verifying your website in Google Search Console won’t impact your Google Search indexing or ranking whatsoever.
Gary said, “Having your site verified in Search Console or changing the verification code and method has no effect on indexing or ranking whatsoever.”
John Mueller of Google previously said that Search Console verification doesn’t help with crawling either.
Gary added later that Search Console gives you data and analytics that can help you make improvements to your site to help you rank better in Google Search potentially. “You can use the data that Search Console gives you to improve your site and thus potentially do better in Search with your site, but otherwise has no effect on search whatsoever,” he added.
Here is the video embed at the 15:27 mark:
Forum discussion at Twitter.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Say Most Common Reason For Blocking Googlebot Are Firewalls or CDNs Issues

Gary Illyes from Google posted a new PSA on LinkedIn saying that the most common reason a site unexpectedly blocks Googlebot from crawling is due to a misconfiguration of a firewall or CDN.
Gary wrote, “check what traffic your firewalls and CDN are blocking.” “By far the most common issue in my inbox is related to firewalls or CDNs blocking googlebot traffic. If I reach out to the blocking site, in the vast majority of the cases the blockage is unintended.”
So what can you do? Gary said, “I’ve said this before, but want to emphasize it again: make a habit of checking your block rules. We publish our IP ranges so it should be very easy to run an automation that checks the block rules against the googlebot subnets.”
Gary linked to this help document for more details.
In short, do what you can to test to see if your site is accessible to Googlebot. You can use the URL inspection tool in Google Search Console, as one method. Also, confirm with your CDN or firewall company that they are allowing Googlebot and ask them to prove it.
Forum discussion at on LinkedIn.
SEARCHENGINES
Google Search Testing More Card Box Like Buttons In Search

Google is testing more card and box-like elements in the search results. We covered this with the product results interface a few weeks back but now we are seeing them for other elements.
Here are screenshots shared with me of these designs:
Via @b4k_khushal:
Via @mblumenthal via @b4k_khushal:
I kind of like them but I might be wrong. 🙂
Forum discussion at Twitter.
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