Google Issues With Indexing & Serving New Content

Google is having issues with indexing and serving new content within Google Search. The issues started around 2 p.m. ET and have been sporadically happening since then. I personally have been seeing new content come up randomly, but most of my queries do not show new content.

Google has confirmed the issue at 7:49 pm ET (after we posted our stories) saying, “There’s an ongoing issue that’s delaying the indexing of newly published content. We’re working on identifying the root cause.”

There’s an ongoing issue that’s delaying the indexing of newly published content. We’re working on identifying the root cause. You can monitor progress here on the Google Search Status Dashboard: https://t.co/PWq6liOdCC

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) October 5, 2023

Google said this is an indexing issue, not a serving issue but it seems more serving than indexing to me but I do not work at Google.

I first spotted this issue from Edward Hyatt, Director of Newsroom SEO at the Wall Stree Journal, who posted the issue on Twitter:

Indexing of new content in Search looks like it dropped around 2-3pm. #SEO

— Edward Hyatt (@Edward_Hyatt) October 5, 2023

Here are examples of site command restricted to show only content in the past hour and normally this would show news articles but in these cases Google is not.

In fact, the story I published about this on Search Engine Land 20 minutes ago is still not being served by Google Search:

And Google Search Console is saying this article is indexed but Google Search is not serving it. So it seems like a serving and not an indexing issue:

45 minutes later, this piece of content is now showing for me in the Google search results:

Here are other sites:

Google’s Search Liaison, Danny Sullivan, said Google is investigating these sporadic reports:

I’ve heard some sporadic reports, and we’re checking on these.

— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) October 5, 2023

With all the Google updates rolling now, this is not great timing for indexing or serving issues…

Forum discussion at Twitter.