Google Search Console Indexing Warnings and Errors

Google Search Console Indexing Warnings and Errors

If your website has Google Analytics or Google Tag manager installed you may see email notifications from your Google Search Console with suggested updates to your website to improve Google search performance.

See below for some of the more common messages received and what can be done to address these issues:

  1. Google Search Console: 404 Error

    1. A 404 error message means that a webpage can't be found
      If you see a 404 error for a specific URL in your Google Search Console account, it is because the URL is redirecting to a page that can't be found. This may occur if the webpage was deleted, or the page URL was changed.
      Once a URL generates a 404 error, Google will remove the page from its index in time. Once Google recrawls your website and updates its database, the errors no longer appear in your Google Search Console account. In the meantime, you can mark these errors as 'fixed'.
      If you receive a 404 error message for a URL:
    2. Check if the page is supposed to be working. If you changed a page URL or deleted a page then the page will not work and you will get a 404.

  2. Google Search Console: "Could Not Determine the Prominent Video" Error

    1. The Video Indexing Report in your Google Search Console shows the pages Google detected a video on. The report also shows you how many of those pages are indexed. 
      You may sometimes see a "Google could not determine the prominent video on the page" error in the Video Indexing Report. This error means that Google has found one or more videos on your page, but it can't determine which is the most important video.
    2. Some reasons why Google might not be able to determine the prominent video on your page include:
      • Your video is not immediately visible on your page, and your visitors need to scroll down to see it (also known as "below the fold")
      • The size of your video is too small
      • You have more than one video on the page
      • You have a background video on your page
      If you think that any of these issues apply to your video, we recommend fixing the issue and then requesting reindexing for the page.
    3. Google's article about the Video Indexing Report.