Google Search Console Update On Request Indexing & Disavow.

Google Search Console Update On Request Indexing & Disavow Tool Issues

As you know, Google Search Console has some things up in the air around broken or temporarily not functioning features. You know about the ongoing request indexing tool being offline for now 2 months and 7 days. Also the validate fix tool being offline also. But also the disavow tool does not really work well for domain verified sites.

Here are some updates for these issues.

Disavow Tool on Domain Properties

When Google launched the new disavow tool a month ago, but it does not seem to work with domain properties, i.e. when you verify your whole domain name at once.

Here is a screen shot that says "Domain properties are not supported at this time."

John Mueller of Google updated us on Friday at the 44:15 mark in a video saying the Google Search Console team is aware of it and he believes it is on their list of things to do. But if you are submitting disavows every day and you feel you need to do it four times each day, then you are focused on the wrong things.

Here is the transcript:

When will Search Console allow disavows files submitted to domain verified sites and allow all four versions to apply at the same time? We don't want to do it four times.

I don't know. I think that's that's on the Search Console list of things to do. In particular when they rolled out the new disavow feature we did bring them that feedback because it also came from folks like you. So I don't know what what the timing there will be. The good part I guess here is that it's for the most part it's really rare that you have to do a disavow final submission. So if if you do this like in an extreme case once a month and you have to do it four times rather than one time, it's like it's not a ton of time saved. On the other hand if you're doing this daily then probably you're focusing on things that don't have a strong effect as you'd expect.

Here is the embed:

Request Indexing Tool

So the request indexing tool being offline for now 2 months and 7 days, since October 14, 2020. John Mueller of Google told me at SMX that he thought it would be back by the end of the year, he was hopeful at least he said. But now he is not that sure.

He said at the 38:18 mark "When do you bring back the request indexing tool. I don't know. So we will see. I know that lots of people want it and the Search Console team is pretty close to kind of getting that back lined up. I don't know what the timing there will be. It's like there's like some chance that we might still get it this year though it's getting really tight."

Here is the video embed at the start time:

Issue Validation

Well, I do not have an update on this, as of the time I wrote this, it was still not working. This feature was temporarily disabled on December 16, 2020 and while it does let you submit a validation fix, nothing really happens. It just stays in the started cycle.

Here is the screen shot that still says "started" from when I initiated it on December 16th:

So there you have it.

Forum discussion at YouTube Community.

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