Black Hat SEOs Complaining About Google’s Indexing API Not Working

SEO

By Chris Barnhart Last updated Sep 17, 2024

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There are complaints in the BlackHatWorld forums that the Google Indexing API is not working. Some are saying Google is returning a call saying all is good but when it comes to indexing the content, it is not happening.

Some are saying it is just an issue with indexing and others are saying it has to do with the Google Indexing API. I did see some random indexing complaints over the past day or so, but I always see indexing complaints.

This site is not having issues being indexed, so I suspect it is more of a specific.

Here are some complaints in the BlackHatWorld Forums:

Today I have problem on Google Indexing API – The links are succesfully sent to indexing, 200 OK status code, but I have no request from Googlebot. I have tried with multiple domains and accounts.

It’s a major problem or update, many indexing services that has been using it got their services in hold

You’re not alone who is facing this problem after new update.

Anyone tried the schema they said it’s working with? I tried Jobposting embedded in Videoobject, but this doesn’t work either.

Google did recently clarify their spam rules around the Indexing API. But I don’t think any new action was specifically taken, I think it was Google just being clear about the rules.

As a reminder, John Mueller of Google said most sites wrongfully using the indexing API are spammy anyway. As a reminder, the Google Indexing API should just be used for job postings and live stream content – nothing else. Google has said if you use it for other purposes it won’t work. Many who have tried it over the years said it works to get your content indexed fast but then it drops out of the index quickly after.

Also, Google does not index everything and we see that after core updates we see complaints about indexing. Why? Because indexing requires some level of quality and Google will not index pages it finds to not meet a certain threshold of quality. Since we just had the August 2024 core update, these types of complaints following are not really new.

Here are times in the past we covered a topic like this:

Forum discussion at BlackHatWorld Forums.