Confirmed: Google Working On Google News Indexing Issue Impacting All Publishers
After hearing reports that the Google News team is working on fixing an issue, Google has confirmed it last night. Many publishers were either not showing up in Google News or had limited visibility in Google News over the past few weeks. Google confirmed this is an "ongoing issue with indexing in Google News that's affecting all sites."
Google posted, "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."
So this seems to be an "indexing" issues specific with Google News, and Google said "all sites." I did not notice it impacting the sites in Google News that I have Search Console access to.
A Google Product Expert posted an update in a Google News Publisher Help Thread saying, "They received reports on this issue and right now the team is working on it. It's a known issue that should gradually be fixed. Thanks for your patience and understanding while the issue is being worked on."
The issue was that starting around June 21st or so, some publishers saw their Google News traffic and visibility significantly drop. The thread has its first report a week or so after the issue began from a German publisher who said their Google News visibility was cut off on June 23rd.
Since then, dozens of other publishers reported the same issue.
Here are some traffic drop charts from the thread:
Here is a chart from Twitter:
According to Will Flannigan, the SEO Editor at the Wall Street Journal, he said, it is "related to the Google News visibility issues that began in late June. Essentially, many news publishers saw their visibility tank. In the U.S., syndicated Yahoo content took its place, skyrocketing Yahoo's Google New visibility."
Will spotted this a few weeks ago, right when it was starting, here is his Twitter thread of the issue back then:
And guess what they're ranking with? Syndicated content. This first example is @AP, no big deal right? This story was Yahoo's most visible story on Google News for June 22. pic.twitter.com/Gh3IMPjfs8
— Will Flannigan 🌵 (@Will_Flannigan) June 26, 2023
But what about June 23? Yahoo's third-most-visible article on Google News was this one from NBC... Sure, the dateline is June 22 and maybe that's what NBC has agreed to (Yahoo syndicated a day behind). But take a look at this... pic.twitter.com/AZLsXBxTpW
— Will Flannigan 🌵 (@Will_Flannigan) June 26, 2023
Fox News is also suffering. Here we see a Fox News story from Sunday ranking w/Yahoo on Monday. Sure! Again, it's a day lag between publish and syndication BUT.... pic.twitter.com/PhG2IcC74k
— Will Flannigan 🌵 (@Will_Flannigan) June 26, 2023
I'm obviously not privy to the deals publishers are cutting with Yahoo. And it's clear Google has a role to play here, but if I was a news publisher and saw charts like this, I'd shit a brick. pic.twitter.com/89K1r5Qlst
— Will Flannigan 🌵 (@Will_Flannigan) June 26, 2023
Hi folks, we have this listed as an incident that the team is investigating now: https://t.co/NlsLfymPx4
— John Mueller (official) · Not #30D (@JohnMu) July 10, 2023
Again, Google is now aware of the issue and working on a resolution.
0 Comments