Since April 2026, the same reports have been piling up on SEO forums and webmaster communities: pages disappearing from Google's index with no manual penalties, no crawl errors, no clear explanation in Search Console.
Google's response came through John Mueller: "We're not seeing anything unusual in the data."
The problem is that website owners are seeing something very unusual in their own data.
What Webmasters Are Reporting
The pattern in the reports is consistent:
- Pages moving from "indexed" to "Crawled, currently not indexed" or "Excluded" for no apparent reason
- No manual action message in Search Console
- No identifiable crawl error
- Drops in impressions that seem to indicate a deindex but don't confirm one
The phenomenon affects sites across very different sectors, which makes it hard to attribute to a specific action against one type of content.
The Search Console Bug That Complicates Everything
The situation is further complicated by a technical issue documented by Google: a bug in Search Console's logging that skewed impression data from May 2025 through the end of April 2026.
This means many sites had over- or under-represented impression data for almost a year — and now that the bug has been fixed, baseline values have shifted. A drop that looks sudden might actually reflect the normalization of corrected data.
The Role of the May Core Update
Google completed a Core Update in May 2026. Core updates redefine the criteria Google uses to assess content quality and relevance — and the resulting ranking changes are often mistaken for deindexing.
A page that loses visibility after a core update is still in the index, but appears less often or not at all for queries it previously ranked for. In Search Console, a drastic drop in impressions can look identical to being excluded from the index if you don't verify the data with the "URL Inspection" tool.
How to Tell If the Problem Is Real
If you're seeing sudden traffic drops or suspicious pages in Search Console, here are the steps to figure out what's happening:
1. Use "URL Inspection" for key pages The URL Inspection tool in Search Console tells you explicitly whether a page is in the index or not. It's the most reliable source — not the aggregated charts.
2. Check the "Coverage > Pages" section Look at the historical numbers in the exclusion categories. A recent increase in "Crawled, currently not indexed" is a real signal; a stable figure you've always had is normal.
3. Check for manual actions In Search Console, under the "Security & Manual Actions" section. If there's an explicit penalty, you'll find it here.
4. Rule out the bug's bias If you have anomalous historical data between May 2025 and April 2026, consider it potentially unreliable. Compare it with data from before May 2025 or after April 2026.
Google's Position
John Mueller addressed the reports by describing them as "ordinary movement" of the index — something that happens continuously. Google shrinks and expands the index based on perceived content quality, and not every exclusion amounts to a formal penalty.
This response, while technically correct, hasn't reassured much those seeing real traffic drops.
The practical advice: use Search Console data with specific tools (URL Inspection, Coverage report) instead of relying solely on impression charts, which now have a historical baseline potentially distorted by the bug. If the problem is real and the excluded pages matter, a content quality review is the most logical starting point.