{"id":12045,"date":"2026-07-20T19:08:19","date_gmt":"2026-07-20T11:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/?p=12045"},"modified":"2026-07-20T19:08:19","modified_gmt":"2026-07-20T11:08:19","slug":"google-downplays-search-console-error-reports-says-many-arent-real-problems-via-sejournal-martinibuster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/?p=12045","title":{"rendered":"Google Downplays Search Console \u201cError\u201d Reports. Says Many Aren\u2019t Real Problems via @sejournal, @martinibuster"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><\/p> <div id=\"narrow-cont\"> <p>Google\u2019s John Mueller and Martin Splitt discussed how site owners and SEOs approach Search Console (GSC) as the place to find errors to fix and that the better way to use it is to think of it as a place to identify patterns, many of which are normal.<\/p> <h2>Interpreting Search Console Messages<\/h2> <p>Martin Splitt called attention to a possible failure on Google\u2019s side to properly communicate how Search Console data should be perceived and used, commenting that many people come to it looking for things that are wrong that need of fixing. What happens is that they see 404 \u201cerrors\u201d or pages not indexed and want to fix them when in reality there might not be anything there that needs fixing.<\/p> <p><em>Splitt explained:<\/em><\/p> <blockquote> <p>\u201cI don\u2019t know if you remember, but recently at a Search Central Live event, there was a question about the indexing report, the coverage report in Search Console where someone\u2019s like, well, there\u2019s this page that I have and it\u2019s indexed, but the search console report shows it\u2019s not indexed.<\/p> <p>And why is it wrong, was basically the question.<\/p> <p>And I recently saw another example of that with someone on Reddit who thought they screwed up because they have a bunch of non-indexed pages.\u201d<\/p> <\/blockquote> <p><iframe class=\"sej-iframe-auto-height\" id=\"in-content-iframe\" scrolling=\"no\" src=\"https:\/\/www.searchenginejournal.com\/wp-json\/sscats\/v2\/tk\/Middle_Post_Text\"><\/iframe><\/p> <p>John Mueller agreed, explaining that this is more of a beginners level issue with indexed pages and the idea that pages that aren\u2019t indexed are indicative of a problem that needs solving, which isn\u2019t necessarily the case.<\/p> <p><em>Mueller responded:<\/em><\/p> <blockquote> <p>\u201cYeah, I think it\u2019s something that a lot of people, especially in the beginning when they start using Search Console, they run into this kind of thing where they look at the page indexing report and they see, oh, there\u2019s like hundreds of pages that are not indexed. This is an error, clearly on my side, something that I have to fix.<\/p> <p>And then they go off and try to do things to understand it or fix it.\u201d<\/p> <\/blockquote> <p>Martin Splitt commented that Google sending emails about it compounds the confusion about page indexing because it unintentionally feeds the idea that something needs fixing.<\/p> <p><em>Splitt continued his thought:<\/em><\/p> <blockquote> <p>\u201cAnd I think the mechanism we have for people to acknowledge that they understand what\u2019s happening is this like fix, confirm fixed or mark as fixed or something. And\u2026 while generally a great thing, I think in this case, it\u2019s a little\u2026 It\u2019s triggering the wrong response or the wrong expectation, I think.\u201d<\/p> <\/blockquote> <p>Mueller responded that the \u201cmark as fixed\u201d interaction may have more to do with using a similar user interface across Search Console.<\/p> <p><em>He said:<\/em><\/p> <blockquote> <p>\u201cAnd in some cases, there are things that you can fix. Like if you have a bunch of 404 pages and you realize your server was set up wrong, you can tell us you fixed this issue and we\u2019ll try to fix it.<\/p> <p>On the other hand, if something else went wrong in indexing and it\u2019s more like our systems decided we weren\u2019t as curious as you might be, then it\u2019s not something that you necessarily fix yourself, it\u2019s not something purely technical.\u201d<\/p> <\/blockquote> <h2>Look For Patterns<\/h2> <p>Martin Splitt said that another Googler had given him feedback, saying that what\u2019s going on with the data is that there are patterns and that some of the patterns may be unusual and that when that happens it\u2019s a reason to dig deeper to find out what\u2019s going on, saying that it\u2019s a different way to look at data.<\/p> <p><em>He explained:<\/em><\/p> <blockquote> <p>\u201cIt\u2019s an interesting way of looking at it, I think, because it\u2019s not like, is this index, is this not index? It\u2019s a different thought. It\u2019s like, is the site in the index doing what I expect to do?<\/p> <p>And I think it can help you to spot things that haven\u2019t happened the way you intend them to happen. So for instance, if you\u2019re migrating and you\u2019re setting up redirects, then<\/p> <p>Indexing report shows you, ta-da, a steep rise in redirects. Page with a redirect. It\u2019s not indexed because it\u2019s redirecting somewhere else.<\/p> <p>And if you look at it as an inventory, as a monitoring tool only, then you\u2019re like, ah, what\u2019s happening? Why is there pages that are not indexed because they are now redirecting? When in reality, that\u2019s exactly what you want them to do because you just set it up.<\/p> <p>As long as that hasn\u2019t happened in the index report, then you know, ah, OK, interesting. We have to wait a little longer because the processing hasn\u2019t completed yet.\u201d<\/p> <\/blockquote> <h2>404 \u201cErrors\u201d<\/h2> <p>Lastly, Mueller and Splitt circled back to the 404 error report. I\u2019ve mentioned before that the reason the 404 server response is referred to as an error is because when a crawler (or a browser) requests a URL that does not exist on the server, the request is an error. That\u2019s the error, not that the site owner has an error on their website. URLs that no longer exist are normal so there\u2019s no kind of negative issue related to that.<\/p> <p>However, 404 server response messages in the Google Search Console should be investigated because it could be that there is a problem like a broken link or that a URL changed but the internal links to the old URL weren\u2019t updated to the new URL.<\/p> <p><em>Mueller continued:<\/em><\/p> <blockquote> <p>\u201cI also think, especially with 404s, that\u2019s something that sometimes throws people off because they\u2019re labeled as an error and it\u2019s almost like your website is returning an error.<\/p> <p>And then a lot of people see that and say, well, I have to fix this error.\u201d<\/p> <\/blockquote> <p>Martin Splitt said that many times a 404 response is the right thing, that it\u2019s an \u201cerror\u201d that\u2019s expected.<\/p> <p><em>He explained:<\/em><\/p> <blockquote> <p>\u201cIt\u2019s actually a good thing. The problem is that, and then I get the question like, so, but why does Search Console show it as an error?<\/p> <p>Because it is an error. It\u2019s just an expected one.\u201d<\/p> <\/blockquote> <h2>Takeaways<\/h2> <ul> <li>A useful way to use Search Console is to think of it as a tool for identifying patterns and trends, not as a checklist of problems to fix.<\/li> <li>Many page not indexed and 404 errors are normal and expected, and do not necessarily mean that something needs fixing.<\/li> <li>The blame for the way SEOs and site owners approach Search Console looking for things to fix is on Google because the user interface and messaging can unintentionally encourage site owners to assume that every reported issue signals that something needs fixing. .<\/li> <li>Understanding the context of Search Console reports helps users identify real technical issues that require investigation.<\/li> <\/ul> <h2>Listen to Google\u2019s Search Off The Record podcast here:<\/h2> <p class=\"vcont\"><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"How to read the Indexing Report\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/1-PcVLHplwc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p> <p><em>Featured Image by Shutterstock\/Prostock-studio<\/em><\/p> <\/div> <p>News,SEO#Google #Downplays #Search #Console #Error #Reports #Arent #Real #Problems #sejournal #martinibuster1784545699<\/p> ","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Google\u2019s John Mueller and Martin Splitt discussed how site owners and SEOs approach Search Console (GSC) as the place to find errors to fix and that the better way to use it is to think of it as a place to identify patterns, many of which are normal. Interpreting Search Console Messages Martin Splitt called [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":12046,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[4570,96,2186,214,75,415,10857,454,2026,95,80],"class_list":["post-12045","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-accessibility","tag-arent","tag-console","tag-downplays","tag-error","tag-google","tag-martinibuster","tag-problems","tag-real","tag-reports","tag-search","tag-sejournal"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12045","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12045"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12045\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/12046"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12045"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12045"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/longzhuplatform.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12045"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}