Google shared issues around canonicalization and mobile-indexing.

canonicalization and mobile-indexing

There has been chit-chatting about issues found in Google indexing since 23rd September in SEO industry. If you are well aware of this then on 23rd September the issue similar to Google bug related to URLs which search engine considered as the canonical URLs. However, there was no confirmation whether Google seriously have bug issue or not. But on 2nd October, Google confirmed that Google had indexing bugs with Canonicalization and Mobile-indexing. No doubt, bug issue causes serious problem to digital marketers and SEOs.

Do you need to panic? Not at all guys because in this article I will talk everything about bug issue and what Google said to tackle this issue. Don’t skip and make sure you read the full article.

Let’s jump into the pool of update below.

Google’s recent shared details on Indexing Bug issue with canonical and mobile-indexing

About few days ago, Google confirmed the indexing bug issue where pages were dropping out of the index. Since 23rd September, Google was trying to summarise the issue and saw some changes. After noticing the changes, Google confirmed it as canonical issue and few days after it another new issue also declared as Mobile-indexing issue. Google has said that the issue was two-fold: one with canonicalization and the other with mobile-indexing.

Here is the confirmation of Google on Twitter via Search Liaison Account, “we are currently working to resolve two separate indexing issues that have impacted some URLs. One is with mobile-indexing. The other is with canonicalization, how we detect and handle duplicate content. In either of these two cases, pages might not be indexed.”

Let’s dig deeper into the two issues below and read one by one.

The concept of canonicalization issue

Canonicalization issue occurs when a website contains more than one URL displaying similar or identical content. In other words, canonical issues arise when a website is access by two or more URL. It simply means that the site has some kind of issues that compel Google or search engine penalize your website and leading to ranking drop from Google’s SERPs.

According to Google, it may not index pages, “if the canonical issue is involved, URL Inspector may show the URL as a duplicate & the Google-selected canonical will be different from it.”

Briefly, Google was displaying a completely wrong URL for a page or not displaying that page at all in its index.

The concept of Mobile-indexing issue

In very simple words, Mobile-indexing issue means when your site pages are not indexed by Googlebot. So Google says, “If a previously indexed page has gone, it might be the mobile-indexing issue, where we’re failing to select any page at all to index.”

Though this is not the first time mobile-indexing issue is happening, Google said the issue “spiked” around the middle of this past week. Moreover, Google added it impacted a much larger piece of the issue, around 0.2% and Google as of October 2nd restored 25% of it and continues to do so now.

You may think this 0.2% seems small but Google has trillions of pages in its index. So the impact on the pages is massive.

Fluctuations caused due to Bug

You all know that whenever any Google algorithm update comes, webmasters encounter ranking and traffic fluctuations happening on their websites. But the issue which Google found on 23rd September related to canonical URL also caused fluctuation problem. Essentially, Google seemed to have switched out one URL with another unrelated URL for many websites.

So this can be the 100% reason for the fluctuations you saw in the search results and tracking tools. This is the reason why many people are thinking there is an update or something related to Google algorithm.

Now move ahead and see what Google is doing for the issues.

Google is trying to resolve both these issues

Undoubtedly, you would be concerning for these bug issues but you no need to get fret because Google is working on fixing the issues. On Twitter, Google posted that it may take days to fully resolve both these issues. Since the bug issues came into limelight, Google has restored about 10% of those URLs and keep reprocessing and since then Google restored about ¼ of those URLs and keep reprocessing more.

So it is clear that the issue is taking time to resolve. And Google said that the canonical issue started early on September 20, not September 22 or 23. However, since October 2nd Google restored a lot more bug issues.  

Do you need to do anything about these issues? No. Google will take care of these issues on its own. Google said, “No action is required to take with these issues on the part of site owners.” “We apologize for the issues here and are working rapidly to resolve them. We’ll update this thread as each is corrected,” Google added further.

The bottom line

Bug issue is a threat for any webmaster or SEO in digital marketing. It is also because bug problem can cause serious issue to websites and de-grade their site performance on Google. Canonical issue and mobile indexing issues are what may affect the site negatively. However, Google is working on fixing the issue. You no need to take any step to tackle the problem on your own. Just wait for Google to completely fix the bug problem.

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