Where did my Search Console errors go?

If you’ve noticed that your Yoast SEO Search Console report looks surprisingly empty, it’s because Google have shut down the system which provides data about their crawl errors.

Update: the Yoast SEO Search Console report doesn’t exist anymore. Please visit your Google Search Console account for information on possible errors.

There’s no need to worry, though – we knew this was coming, and we have plans for the future. Your Search Console report won’t show any information for now, but nothing on your site will break, and you don’t need to take any special action.

The good news is that we’re already building our own, brand new systems for error reporting and management. We think it’ll be even better and more useful than the old Google Search Console integration.

What happened?

If you actively manage your website’s SEO, then you’re probably familiar with Google Search Console. It’s a great way to discover and manage any errors which Google may have encountered when crawling and reading your site.

A snapshot from yoast.com’s own Google Search Console account. We should fix those errors!

Until recently, Google provided us with a way to extract information from their systems. That meant that we could show you Google’s crawl errors and issues right inside your site’s admin area, via the Yoast SEO plugin.

Help! What is an API?

An API is a system which allows software to talk other software. The Google Search Console API allows websites to connect to Google’s systems, and to request information about your website. It used to provide information about crawl errors, but no longer does so.

Having those issues listed inside your side admin area made it easy for you to fix those issues ‘on the fly’. You could set up redirects, tweak pages, and mark individual issues as resolved – without ever leaving your website.

Unfortunately, Google have removed the API which powered this system.

That means it’s no longer possible for us – or anyone else – to get information about your crawl errors. The only way to get this information (at the moment) is for you to manually visit your Google Search Console account.

What does this mean for me?

Nothing will break on your website, and you don’t need to take any action. You’ll just find that if you visit your Search Console admin page in your WordPress website, you won’t see any errors. You’ll see something like this empty table:

You won’t find any errors in your Search Console report, as it’s no longer possible to retrieve them from Google.

That empty table doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t have any errors – it just means that we can’t fetch or show them to you.

If you want to go and check your errors and issues, you’ll need to go directly to your Search Console account. If you’re not sure where to start, you can follow this handy guide to using Search Console.

Creating and managing redirects

We know that many of our premium users rely on our Search Console integration to create redirects for broken pages and URLs.

If you’ve set up redirects through the Search Console section in the past, don’t worry – nothing’s been lost, and your redirects still work.

In the future, you’ll just need to use the ‘Redirects’ section to create them, instead.

You can create redirects for broken pages or URLs in Yoast SEO premium, via the Redirects system

We knew this was coming, but we expected a replacement system

We’ve known that Google planned to remove support for error reporting from their Search Console API for a while. It provided data from the ‘old’ Search Console system, which has been gradually replaced or removed as they moved people to the ‘new’ Search Console system. As such, we knew it had a short lifespan.

We’d hoped and assumed that they’d replace the API, in the same way that they’d moved or replaced other functionality from the old system.

What we didn’t expect was for them to simply ‘turn it off’, without providing an alternative or updated solution. We’re a little disappointed about how this has been handled by Google, but, we have some options.

What happens next?

For now, you don’t need to do anything.

We’re chasing Google for updates, and once we hear more from them about what they have planned – if anything – we’ll update our information to reflect that.

Their documentation and communications have hinted at planned future capabilities and support, but there’s nothing out there yet. So we’re waiting, watching, and asking questions about what’s in the pipeline (we’ve particularly high-hopes for Google’s SiteKit WordPress plugin, which is currently in beta).

In the meantime, we’re considering alternative options, processes, and ways in which we can replace or supplement this data. We already have some exciting plans:

In the short-term: We’ll be building an import tool, which lets you upload error reports which you’ve manually downloaded from Google Search Console. We’ll also support uploads from some other tools, which we’re excited about. We’ll share more news that soon.

In the mid-term: We’ll be looking to partner and integrate with a wide variety of your favourite SEO tools and platforms, so that we can import their data about your website’s errors and crawl issues. That’ll give us much richer, more diverse, and more interesting data than ever.

We’ll keep you updated with our progress, and we’ll let you know if we hear back from Google about their plans.

Coming up next!


20 Responses to Where did my Search Console errors go?

  1. shadab awan
    shadab awan  • 5 years ago

    thank you for updating about Google Search Console and about your future plans. I hope and expect some great updates about Websites and SEO which make webmasters lifer easier

  2. Bikash Roy
    Bikash Roy  • 5 years ago

    Thank you for the update information.

  3. PeopleSearchLive
    PeopleSearchLive  • 5 years ago

    I feel for you! Google is making everything more difficult. Did this also affect the sitemap, because I don’t see that in the Yoast plugin anymore?

  4. Albert
    Albert  • 5 years ago

    Dear sir,
    Thank you for updating us with this information. My homepage can be not indexed by search engines all-time notify but why.

  5. Ani Ciije
    Ani Ciije  • 5 years ago

    I was really worried about the error issues on my search console, i feel a little revealed getting this information.

    i hope something will be done about it very soon, because my pages are suffering..
    thanks Yoast

  6. Mark Reed
    Mark Reed  • 5 years ago

    Hopefully the search console access is resolved soon with Google. I prefer to have insight to this on my dashboard for my photo booth rental website.

  7. Rajkumar
    Rajkumar  • 5 years ago

    Hello sir,
    I am not able to indexed my post in google search console kindly help me in this issue .

    Thanks
    Rajkumar

  8. Ahmad Raza
    Ahmad Raza  • 5 years ago

    Thank you for updating us with information.

  9. Pierre
    Pierre  • 5 years ago

    Looks like Google starts with censorship on the web leaving the big web site of the web to display and to erase the small ones, what a shame on the part of Google, because I noticed that from 2 months ago Google bots do not pass on my website and to some that I manage for my clients who send me complaints by having noticed that their websites had dropped in the indexation of their websites on the engine Google search.

    I don’t know if it is the same for every one.

  10. Marco
    Marco  • 5 years ago

    Thanks for the update. I was using the Search Console-option on a daily basis.

  11. Stav Technologies
    Stav Technologies  • 5 years ago

    Hi Jono,

    Thanks for sharing this blog with us.

    Yes. I have faced the same as I am unable to understand when actually Google crawlers start to crawl information. I have done a few businesses listing sites, where few are showing and most of them are not visible till date. I am a bit confused. I haven’t installed SEO Yoast yet, budget issue. But I am looking for some solutions.

  12. Gamebucket
    Gamebucket  • 5 years ago

    Thanks for your awesome plugins and sharing these helpful information

  13. Pakistan English news
    Pakistan English news  • 5 years ago

    Thank you for updating us with this information.

  14. Linda
    Linda  • 5 years ago

    I’ve complained about this on my client websites and no one ever mentioned that it’s a global change you all knew about! Now you tell me. I got tech support suggestions for how to get it back that did not work – exercise in frustration.

  15. satta king
    satta king  • 5 years ago

    Thank you for updating Jono. I really rely on those redirects.

  16. sonukumar
    sonukumar  • 5 years ago

    Hi, i am SEO trainee at 01Synergy. I had given a topic to present on search console. I had many doubts. But your blog clears my all doubts. Thank you for this much needed information. Shockingly now i can see the real face of google. Please give regular updates on console. Best of luck.Keep the good work continue

  17. Corey Wolf
    Corey Wolf  • 5 years ago

    Thanks for the update Jono. It’s disappointing to see Google making moves like this without supporting the community. I hope we see a solution soon.

  18. Arash Ghaemi
    Arash Ghaemi  • 5 years ago

    Thank you for updating us with this information.
    I’m relieved to know that my redirects still work and nothing I’ve done has been lost.
    Keep up the good work.

  19. Catherine Ott
    Catherine Ott  • 5 years ago

    Wow..Shame on Google for not giving an alternative to the api for the new search console..I really rely on those redirects. It was one less thing to worry about.

  20. Okereke Divine
    Okereke Divine  • 5 years ago

    Thanks for the updates