After 69 days of struggle, the Request Indexing Tool has started working again!
The tech giant Google has enabled the request indexing tool once again inside the URL Inspection utility in Google Search Console. Disabled on October 14, 2020, i.e.,69 days ago, the tool was predicted to come back before the festive shopping season.
That came and passed; however, it can be used in Christmas and New Years‘.
The image below shows the screenshot of this feature in Google Search Console:
Request Indexing Feature
The request indexing tool, located in the GSC (Google Search Console), is a means for administrators to request indexing manually. It is generally utilized during a new or fresh web page is issued or when the current page is refreshed.
Besides, it helps Google by informing that a website is back running after the website was offline for some time.
About the URL Inspection tool
The URL Inspection tool gives data about Google’s indexed edition of a particular page. Data includes indexing issues, AMP errors, and structured data errors.
Ordinary Tasks:
- View the Current Index Status of a Specific URL: Extract data related to Google’s indexed edition of your page. Understand why Google could/couldn’t index your web page.
- Examine a Live URL: Analyze if a page available on your website is capable of being indexed.
- Request Indexing for a URL: It is possible to request that an URL be crawled/recrawled by Google.
- See a Rendered Edition of the Page: View a screenshot of the way Googlebot views the page.
- Check the Loaded JavaScript Output, Resources List, and Other Data: View a list of page code, resources, and additional information by going on the more information link available on the page verdict card.
Google has disabled the “Request Indexing” tool of the URL Inspection software in the Search Console in October.
While it was a temporary move, the feature was disabled for around 69 days.
Google was disabling “Request Indexing” to make a few infrastructure modifications as per the company.
So, What Was the Announcement?
The report. Google stated this on Twitter telling “We’re glad to announce that ‘Request Indexing’ is back to the Google Search Console URL Inspection – just in time for the new year!”
Moreover, Google “reminded” users that if you hold “large numbers of URLs, you should submit a sitemap instead of requesting indexing” through Google Search Console.
“Requesting indexing does not guarantee inclusion to the Google index,” Google added further.
When this tool was disabled, website owners and SEOs were missing it very much. Google said traditional indexing is not affected, but the software was yet very much needed.
Now, Google has brought it back, and it is possible to use it to facilitate crawling and possibly indexing of crucial URLs. These URLs may be old URLs with refreshed content or updated URLs that you desire to see into Google Search fast.
Nevertheless, as per Google, only because you utilize this tool does not indicate Google is not going to index or rank the page.
Also Read: Will Google Roll Out the Passage Indexing Update in 2021?
