Sudden drop in indexed pages... according to WMT

[virtualreality]

I noticed a sudden drop in my indexed pages from Web 2,175 to 997.
I dont see changed in traffic and I dont know if this is an error on not.
Has someone else notice such a drop? Is there another way of checking if my pages are still indexed?

[Storiale]

Google may have fixed their debauchery of bogus index numbers. We are listed as having 3.8 million pages, but we only have 800,000 pages + 20,000 images. August 2, 2015 they began reporting bogus numbers ever since.

If you have 1,200 pages that are poor quality they may have de-indexed, leaving only quality pages which would explain no drop in traffic.

site:yourdomain.com <--- will tell you how many pages indexed.

[virtualreality]

Using site:mysite.com I can see my pages listed. All of my pages are content rich and with unique images so I dont think G has reason to remove them. No black hat SEO either.

[Totalx]

Seems like you have pages in the supplemental index.

[smallcompany]

It was OK until May 10th. Then it started going down. In the case of one of my sites all pages -1 or 2 were indexed per WMT, and the number was never exaggerated over what was in the sitemap.
Searching site: still returns almost all pages.
This is not the first time WMT does this.

[night707]

Same here. Unique pages with quality images, videos and info. Since a few hours 25% less pages indexed at WMT.

Same applies to multiple domains on the same server, all with nothing but travel related quality content.

[edited by: night707 at 9:25 am (utc) on May 13, 2016]

[serenoo]

According to WMT I have 73 pages submitted and 18 indexed, while until a few days ago it was 73/73.
By searching site:www.mywebsite.com all 73 pages are indexed.

[night707]

One domain went down from 75/75 to 75/11 and now only 11 pages are indexed.
Another domain went down from 209/208 to 75/11 to also only 11 pages indexed.

Magic 11?

[Wilburforce]

Everything is normal here (UK). Apart from a minor wobble on 23 August last year, all my pages are indexed, and showing as indexed. Where are the sites reporting issues?

[night707]

Server in the US.
And things seem to get worse by the hour with more and more pages at various domains were taken out of the index.
Nasty .... all mobile friendly and unique content

[Wilburforce]

more and more pages at various domains were taken out of the index

I don't get the impression from what has been said so far that any pages have been de-indexed. It looks like a reporting error - these happen from time to time - in GSC. See the OPs comment:

Using site:mysite.com I can see my pages listed

[night707]

For several domains. using site:mysite.com shows only a portion of all those previously indexed pages.

[smithy_dave]

Hi, We experienced a similar drop on the 12th of May in GWT. One site from 150 > 99 and the other 301 > 150. Whilst the number is worrying and actively want to change if there is an issue, we are a little confused where to start as traffic has remained steady and pages are still visible in the search using the site: . We've even cross checked that the site: search is still working by checking pages which we've blocked from listing by using the canonical tag - all those are correct.

Our current port of call is to fix the 404's listed in GWT (around 30 or so) - just so we can be confident Google isn't having to jump an hurdles in crawling and then we're going to compare the results manually by recording the URLs that come up by doing a site: search and then record the extra results which google displays after this warning...

In order to show you the most relevant results, we have omitted some entries very similar to the 155 already displayed.
If you like, you can repeat the search with the omitted results included.

Once we've done that, its going to be a case of updating content which was either omitted or just not indexed at all.

But if you lot have any other ideas would be please to hear them. All the best. Dave

[aakk9999]

Perhaps it is just a bug in WMT

[virtualreality]

The more I look into this the more I think it is a bug in WMT. My other sites also show this. So must be a bug.

[night707]

Would not call it a bug when a large amount of decent pages becomes invisible.

[Andy Langton]

The more I look into this the more I think it is a bug in WMT. My other sites also show this. So must be a bug.

What's the date that the drop appears? I don't see anything on sites that I have data for. It's very unlikely that a general bug would only affect your sites, so would be helpful to check a specific date.

[virtualreality]

John Mueller confirmed that this is indeed a reporting bug - [seroundtable.com...]

[night707]

At one domain 500 from 2000 pages were taken out of the index on May 12,two other domains lost 90% around April 16, another one was hit on May 11 losing 60% ...

[robzilla]

What's the date that the drop appears?

May 13 for me, exactly like in the Search Engine Roundtable post.

Good to know it's a reporting bug. I manually resubmitted the sitemap anyway.

[smithy_dave]

Just quick message to say thanks for the bug info. We're a little jumpy after being hit with a penalty a couple of years back. Only bonus is this recent alarm kicked us into getting a couple of admin jobs sorted. :) thanks

[robzilla]

It's on the rise. Still about 10% missing, but getting there.

[night707]

some sites have recovered, others are suffering now from DNS errors though the settings have been the same since years for all of them.

[robzilla]

99% indexed now. All fixed.

though the settings have been the same since years for all of them.

Doesn't mean your DNS servers can't fail :-) Or it's another bug, of course, it's hard to tell.

[Sally Stitts]

Same crash date May 13.
From 442 to 254 indexed.
May 23, and STILL NO RECOVERY.

[night707]

robzilla

DNS error since April 10 but robots txt and server connectivity are fine! And the DNS settings are 100% the same as for all other domains on the same server what is also shown at all test pages ...

Is there anyway to contact Google in these days?

[Sally Stitts]

May 25
98.4 % recovered - 335 indexed now