Several publishers reported trouble with Google’s URL removal tool. Submitted URLs were reported to be sitting in the queue but not processing. The issue doesn’t appear to be widespread though.
Twelve hours after publishers reported the bug Google, a company that employs over 10,000 search quality raters, had yet to respond.
URL Removal Tool Reported as Not Working
Several publishers have reported that the URL removal tool isn’t working. However there doesn’t seem to be any chatter on Twitter, Reddit, or WebmasterWorld.
In cases of a widespread outage one will see many people discussing it in multiple places.
I did see one post in a private Facebook SEO group but there was only one reply by a person who said they had successfully used the tool.
This is the opening post on one discussion in the Webmaster Help Forum:
“Hello, I’m having problems concerning the removal of outdated content. I’ve followed the instructions available on https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/7041154?hl=en in order to remove the cached snippet of some URLs but the status of the requested links is ‘Pending’ since last week.
I would be very grateful if you can help me solve this problem since as I have read some other users are experiencing the same issue. “
In another recent post, the user states that they are experienced with the tool but that Google isn’t removing the sites from the queue.
This is the opening post of that second discussion:
“My removal requests for deleted content have been in “Pending” status for 5 days now. Why?
I have canceled a few and tried to remove them via a different gmail account’s console, but same problem. This is happening with all of the different gmail accounts I use.
I do lots of these but looking over quotas, I don’t think I’ve reached those. Any insight greatly appreciated. These use to process in 1 -2 days before recently.”
Is there a URL Removal Tool Outage?
It’s likely that something is going on with the URL removal tool but whatever it is, it’s not widespread.
Several publishers have reported that it is down and one has reported that it worked for him.
Whatever is happening, it appears to be a random error or bug that is affecting publishers and not a widespread outage. If it’s a random bug, that’s something an engineer might want to look into to diagnose what is causing these errors.
But so far nobody from Google has responded.
Is there a Webmaster Help Forums Outage?
What’s sad is that these publishers went to Google’s Webmaster Help Forum and as of this writing, twelve hours have elapsed and nobody from Google has responded.
What’s the point of having a forum for reporting problems when nobody from Google appears to be responding?