Confirmed: Google News Indexing Bug Fixed After 3 Weeks Of Issues
Google confirmed an indexing bug with Google News publishers that went on for about three weeks. It started around June 21st and was officially fixed on Friday, July 14th.
Let me give you the timeline. News publishers began to report noticing issues with their site’s visibility and traffic from Google News around June 29th in this Google New Publisher Help thread. Some noticed the declines in traffic and visibility starting June 21st, some on the 22nd and some on the 23rd.
I began writing the story for this site on July 10th in the morning but then Google confirmed the issue in the afternoon of July 10th by posting the issue in the Google Search Status report. Here is the timeline as Google posted it there:
- 10 Jul 2023 – 13:01 PDT: There’s an ongoing issue with indexing in Google News that’s affecting all sites. Sites may be experiencing a decrease in traffic from Google News. We’re working on identifying the root cause. Next update will be within 24 hours.