10 Search Console Warnings Worth Acting on Today

Google Search Console can be incredibly useful in understanding how Google discovers, crawls, and indexes your website, but a warning does not always equate to an issue with your site. Some issues offer useful information, and others could quietly impact the visibility, traffic, and presence of critical pages.

It is important to prioritise which warnings you address based on their relevance to important pages or a sudden increase in volume. Here are 10 Search Console issues worth reviewing.

1. Pages Not Indexed
   You may see important pages discovered but not indexed by Google, preventing them from generating traffic. Take a look at the URLs reported and ensure the content is relevant, useful, accessible, and internally linked to appear in search results.

2. Crawled – Currently Not Indexed
   This issue means that Google has crawled a page but has not indexed it. It does not necessarily mean that there is a penalty, but you should investigate if there are a large number of important pages in this category. Review the content for quality and relevance, duplication, and internal linking issues.

3. Discovered – Currently Not Indexed
   In this case, Google has identified URLs through backlinks or other sources but has not crawled them yet. Ensure that important pages are easily accessible via your internal linking structure, sitemaps, and overall organisation for Google to crawl and index.

4. Page with Redirect
   Redirects are expected when URLs change or during migrations, but you must review any important pages with excessive redirects, unnecessary redirect chains, or redirects to irrelevant destinations. Check the reported URLs and update your internal linking structure where necessary.

5. 404 Not Found Pages
   Some 404 errors are entirely expected, but you should review any important pages with external backlinks, or URLs with critical internal links pointing to them. If the content has been removed, you should update your links or redirect to a relevant page instead. Avoid sending users and Google bots to dead ends on your site wherever possible.

6. Server Errors
   Server errors can occur when Google attempts to access a page but causes an error on the server instead. If you receive a temporary error, it will likely be resolved, but frequent 5xx server errors can accumulate into a serious issue. Review your server, CDN, hosting, and the reported URLs to resolve the problem.

7. Sitemap Errors
   Your sitemap file lets Google know what pages are important and should be crawled on a regular basis, so you must review any URLs reported as invalid, redirected, or with server errors. Focus on maintaining a healthy mix of your most valuable canonical pages rather than a list of all URLs.

8. Mobile Usability Problems
   If Search Console detects mobile usability problems, you should review the reported issues and update the content, spacing, or structure of the URLs to ensure that they are mobile-friendly and do not require excessive scrolling or have small clickable elements.

9. HTTPS / Security Issues
   Any security-related problems should be reviewed immediately to ensure that Google and users can access your pages securely. Double-check that all important pages appear consistently as secure and that Search Console does not report additional security issues.

10. Core Web Vitals Issues
    Core Web Vitals reports should be reviewed to ensure that your page performance is consistent and provides a great user experience, but avoid chasing an extremely high score if your page provides a good experience for real users. Focus on updating your most critical templates first, such as product, service, or landing pages, rather than minor issues affecting a few URLs.

What You Should Do Now
Avoid spending time chasing unimportant console warnings – focus on reviewing pages that impact the traffic, performance, or presence of your most critical URLs. Check if the issue affects important content, revenue pages, or a large group of URLs before spending time investigating or implementing console recommendations. A Google Search Console Checker is a valuable tool in reviewing the most relevant issues for your website.

How to Use Google Search Console
Google Search Console is most useful as a recurring maintenance or operations task rather than a marketing or analytics tool. Spend no more than an hour per week or per month reviewing and addressing any urgent or important console warnings. A rapid response to indexing, crawling, sitemap, performance, or security issues ensures that they do not impact traffic or the presence of your pages in search results.

The console is not about removing or ignoring warnings, but about identifying the issues that impact your most valuable content and fixing them.

Search Console offers a powerful overview of the technical performance of your website in the eyes of Google but should be used regularly to spot and address any urgent or important issues that impact the traffic and presence of your most important content.

Written by:
Brainito Intelligence
www.brainito.com