Google Search Console recently sent out a large number of emails informing publishers of redirect errors. However, the official Google Search Central Twitter account informed the search marketing community on Monday that the emails may have been sent as a result of an internal indexing error and that they were investigating.
GSC Emails are being sent to the Search Community
The search community noticed a high number of errors for what is normally a rare problem. It’s unusual for something like this to occur.
Error Redirecting
Many publishers may not see redirect errors in their Google Search Console on a regular basis. It’s a technical SEO problem with 301 and 302 redirects.
In general, unless a publisher was making major changes to their website or a plugin update went horribly wrong, a redirect error will not appear on its own.
Google’s developer page provides four examples of redirect errors reported by Google Search Console.
Errors in Redirections
- Redirect chain that was too long
A too-long redirect chain occurs when a URL redirects to another URL, which redirects to another URL, and so on. This frequently occurs with older websites that migrate from proprietary URLs in older publishing technologies to more standard URLs in newer web publishing technologies. - Loop redirection
This is a problem when a URL redirects to another URL, which then redirects back to the original URL, resulting in an essentially infinite loop. - Redirect URL that is longer than the maximum URL length
Another technical SEO issue that comes from Chrome is that the maximum URL length is 2MB. The maximum URL length is recommended for security and performance reasons. - In the redirect chain, a bad or empty URL
This should be self-explanatory.
Google Search Console is working to resolve the issue
One of Google’s official Twitter accounts acknowledged an internal issue and tweeted assurance that the issue was being investigated.
Google posted on Twitter:
“An internal issue is causing an increase of redirect errors during indexing, and associated email notifications.
This is not due to any website issues, but is due to an internal Google issue. We hope to fix this problem quickly.”
What Caused the Problem?
Google has not stated what caused the problem, only that it is an internal one.
Many in the search community believe that Google has reduced web page indexing, and some have responded to Google’s announcement with questions about this.
The person who is asking the question has a valid reason for doing so. There’s no doubt that it’s on the minds of others who may see a link between Google’s apparent change in indexing behavior.
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