🚀 250 Google Crawling Errors! The Disaster Caused by a Drop in Page Quality and Our Recovery Journal #1

😱 The 'Crawling Error' Disaster: 250 Errors Struck Out of Nowhere

The "Crawled - currently not indexed" error count, which usually hovered around 20-30, skyrocketed to over 200 pages overnight. The source of the problem was listed not as 'Website' but as 'Google systems'.

This meant it wasn't a technical issue with individual pages, but rather a "collective indexing refusal" by Google's systems, which had determined that our website's overall page quality had serious problems. For a website operator, this was a devastating crawling error, equivalent to a death sentence.

🤔 Cause Analysis: Low 'Page Quality' Ruined Everything

What on earth was the problem? After some thought, I recalled the 'Marketing Agency' pages, which were filled with thin content. In my rush to build out the pages and introduce as many companies from as many countries as possible, I focused only on the quantity of listings. As a result, each page lacked depth and failed to provide real value to users, becoming a classic case of 'Thin Content'.

As you can see from the image above, Googlebot had diligently crawled these hundreds of pages initially, so they were indexed at first. However, it seems Google later determined that "this information is not valuable enough to be shown in search results" and refused to continue indexing them.

Blog page affected by the indexing error:https://www.allmarketingagency.com/post/how-to-build-a-well-exposed-website

Ultimately, this meant that these low-quality pages significantly dragged down the site's average page quality, to the point that even our content-rich blog posts started experiencing indexing errors.

🛠️ Beginning Major Surgery to Recover 'Page Quality'

Since AMA is a site dedicated to providing diverse information and insights, I believe this is a great opportunity to solve these Page Quality (PQ) and crawling issues and share the experience. As of July 24th, I have started a project to resolve this critical crawling error and restore our collapsed page quality.

• Step 1: 🗑️ Content Cleanup: First, I started by tackling the 250+ low-quality pages that were the main culprits of the crawling error. For pages that can be improved, I plan to completely rewrite them to enhance their content and raise the site's average page quality.
  

• Step 2: ✅ Request Revalidation from Google: Once the cleanup is complete, I will request a 'Validate Fix' through Search Console. This is an official request to Google, essentially saying, "We have recognized and resolved the issue, so please give us another chance."

  
  

• Step 3: 📊 Intensive Monitoring: Afterwards, I will closely track and document the entire process—how the crawling error numbers change and whether the page quality improvements lead to actual indexing.

  
  

This crawling error is undoubtedly a painful failure. However, it has also been a valuable lesson, making me realize the critical importance of page quality firsthand. I plan to consistently share this recovery process through the blog, hoping to be of some help to others facing similar challenges.

🙋‍♂️ Have you ever struggled with sudden crawling errors or page quality issues like me? Please share your valuable experiences and questions in the comments. I'd love for us to put our heads together and find solutions.

📚 # Helpful Resources

• Google Search Central: Index Coverage Report: This is Google's official guide to various crawling errors.

• Google Search Central: Creating helpful, reliable, people-first content: This is a must-read document for understanding the standards of high-quality pages.