Google suspended request indexing feature!
If you have made it a habit after publishing fresh content to head over to your search console to fetch the new URL and request indexing, you recently may have found yourself wondering why there is a grayed out “request for indexing” button. Google has decided to not process indexing requests anymore, at least for now.
On mouse-hover you will see the notification “Indexing requests are currently suspended.”
You may wonder if your new pages are getting indexed at all and may be worried for syndicated content to be indexed before your own, original content.
We are here to talk about what may be the cause for Google to stop offering the “request indexing” option and what it means for you going on with your content strategy.
Find Google’s announcements on Twitter from October 14 2020
Google indexing requests are currently suspended
It uses to be “good practice” once you have finished a new piece of content, to head over to your Google Search Console and to have your new URL Fetched and then request indexing.
If you recently have been visiting your Search Console, you may have noticed that your button to request indexing has been disabled. You will still find the button in your search console; however, you won’t be able to use it.
All that is left for you to do is to fetch the preview of your page, or how it is now called, get a live preview with potential flaws you may want to look after.
Your pages are not getting indexed instantly
You may also have noticed, if you still could use the “request indexing feature” that google has not processed your requests as quickly as they used to. Over the past few month, some pages have not been indexed for weeks, even if you were to use the feature to manually tell Google to crawl your Site.
It has been rumored the mighty Search engine may experience indexing issues, however, we believe disabling the feature is a natural progression of how Google manages crawling and indexing.
Why Google may have suspended indexing requests for now
Over-usage of the “request indexing” feature
It is fair to say, the more people have used this, the less reliable this mechanism has gotten. If everyone can ping Google’s crawler and insert URLs into a queue, how can the crawlers focus on what is important and what isn’t?
Misalignment between crawl budgets and indexing requests
Ultimately, all comes down to crawl budgets.
In an effort to decide what is important (to crawl) and what is less important, Google sets aside a crawl budget for your Website.
This behavior is nothing new.
Obviously, Google’s crawlers have not automatically crawled sites with few content pages that have not been updated in ages daily.
And there is not a valid reason for them to do pent valuable resources on these domains.
Maybe you should think about the crawl budgets that way:
Over time, Google’s crawlers have gathered excessive data on your website. They know its development way better than anyone maintaining a site. Why should they entrust in end-users to have a say in how resources and crawl budgets are dedicated?
On the other hand, it is in Google’s interest to index new pages in relationship to how important a site seems to be.
How does this impact your website’s maintenance and your SEO practice?
While it is a myth to think the more you post, the better chances you must rank, it now may have an implication that may impact your site’s crawl budget.
An active website will increase its crawl budgets and pages will get indexed faster. However, quality is still kind and you should not post only in hopes to have Google index your pages faster. Poorly written content still is more harmful than it will do you any good.
If you have implemented an SEO strategy that involves syndicating content pieces, you might want to double check if your content is already indexed before you distribute it to other domains for it to be posted. They may have a higher crawl budget and it is possible for you to lose “ownership” if the syndicating URL is indexed before yours.
Don’t expect it will return. The URL inspection tool is still a valuable tool to check your web page for potential indexing issues.
Google claims it will crawl and index content through their regular methods.
You can learn more about Google’s indexing policies in their indexing guidelines.
