Something went wrong when requesting indexing

One of the maxims that can be applied to software and its design and maintenance, things will break.

25 September 2023 - I was seeing the massage above. I thought I would document it as if when it get fixed I will not be able to. At the moment I cannot request an index this page so others that are having the problem will not be able to find it.

The message is: "We had a problem submitting your indexing request. Please try agian later"

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This is different to Exceedig your re-indexing Quota

The message above was occuring at the same time but I am not sure that they were related.

The message was occuring on pages that I have previously had no problems in requesting a re-index and I had not changed the coding of the page. I did add the GSC profile for another website that I administer and I had successfully submitted re-index requests for that website.

The quota seems to be on a Google Account useage and individual websites do not get their own quota.

The question asked on the Google Search Console Help Forum

JWP (John) - Platinum Product User - June 1 2023

" That's probably because Google must log manual indexing overuse against not only the domain in question, but also the individual GSC user.

The manual indexing tool is not intended for indexing multiple pages. It's primarily there for testing and to allow you to alert Google that you've fixed something that was say previously broken. When you ask for a page to be indexed, it's added to the indexing queue (along with everyone else). If you then ask again (before the bot has got around to visiting), you simply get moved to the back of the queue.

If you overuse the tool (by submitting too many pages together or indeed multiple requests for the same page) you'll be locked out completely (for a period of time). Just how many times you can use it, or how frequently, is not published information. "

Interesting response. JWR is not an official Google employee so I am not sure whether you can trust the statement that you may be penalised if you use the re-indexing tool too much.

A previous response was:

" OKAY I FOUND THE SOLUTION. Share your site access to another search console profile (linked to any other gmail) and then try indexing the URL. This worked for me. "

This is what I did, but it caused the problem not solve it. Actually, see below, I only access GSC through my main Google Account.

Also, if you make an index request from !any other gmail" this is a seperate Google Account and it is not clear that the original quota exceeding condition was cleared on the first account. Quite frankly I am surprised that Google allow you to have the same GSC property on another Google account.

Multiple Requests

However, there may be something to do with the multiple requests for the same page. This could re-set your quota count.

I really need to review my sitemaps. While it is convienient to submit pages "on the fly" when I want them to show when a predetermined search is made, on the longer-term the pages (URLs) should be in a sitemap so that they are regulaly re-indexed.

At the moment I am not sure whether there is a "penalty" for using the manual re-indexing tool as suggested above. In any case it is probably best to hold this facility in reserve so a page came be made visible at short notice. I have managed to move the "news" pages and the Village Hall page to my Parish Council site, the manual requests for indexing was eating away at my quota so I gave it a rest until it resets.

Something went wrong when requesting indexing

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