Google experienced a major outage this week that affected Search and Maps. Publishers and SEOs also reported problems with search indexing.
The issue appears to have been largely resolved, although there were still a few pockets today reporting ongoing issues.
Classification disturbances
Many people reported disruptions in ranking and some thought it was due to a ranking update.
An individual in a panic posted a discussion on WebmasterWorld about lost rankings:
“I’ve noticed something that really worries me. Some of the top keywords dropped from #1-2 to #10.
This happened overnight, yesterday everything was fine. Today what I see is that keywords go from the top positions to the bottom of the first page.
The reason is pretty obvious, at least to my eyes: the displayed URLs are not relevant. For example, our top ranking page for many business keywords was changed (by Google) to a page that is hardly relevant.
… Another thing I see is that when using site:sitename.com the indexed pages dropped again overnight from ~230 to 169! The home page in the local language is not showing anywhere.”
On August 10, 2022, the person who started the discussion reported:
“Looks like things are back to normal at least for our website.”
Many others on Twitter and Facebook also say there are no more problems.
Indexing issues
One area that the mainstream media did not report was an indexing issue. Many in the search community posted about issues with indexing.
Due to Google’s indexing problem, SERPs face high volatility
Have you faced any problem? #seo #Google #googledown #twitter #seonews #Search Engine Optimization #GoogleNews #DigitalMarketing #rwnihal pic.twitter.com/foZJ9kEoWk
— Nihal PS (@rwnihal) August 10, 2022
Marie Haynes asked if anyone was still seeing issues with indexing:
How do we feel about the state of indexing today? Are we back to normal?
— Dr. Marie Haynes🐧 (@Marie_Haynes) August 10, 2022
Some reported that things returned to normal or started to return:
Indexing status looks good, but my stores aren’t converting like they used to. The rating status appears to be under re-evaluation. I always see this status for 3-4 days after making big changes to templates.
– Christian Radny (@ChrisRadny) August 10, 2022
We are starting to see some recovery today
— Story | Marketing Manager (@storimarketsb2b) August 10, 2022
It seems stable and back to normal, at least for the last 24 hours.
— Vlad Rappoport 🇺🇦 (@vladrpt) August 10, 2022
Google uses data centers around the world, and changes to search have historically taken time to roll out around the world.
Google apologizes
The Guardian reported that a Google spokesperson apologized for the outage and explained that it was due to a software update (which caused unintended consequences).
“We are aware of a software update issue that occurred this afternoon Pacific time that briefly affected the availability of Google Search and Maps,” they said.
“We apologize for the inconvenience. We worked to resolve the issue quickly and our services are now back online.”
Google ranking and indexing issues should be resolved now; if they haven’t, give it a little more time.
If they haven’t changed by the end of the week, they may not be related to the outage because there are coincidences.
Featured image by Shutterstock/Bilanol
