Google may have released an unconfirmed update to its search ranking algorithm between 26th May, 2025 and early June 2025. Several SEOs and bloggers reported that Google was deindexing their previously indexed pages, and crawling but not indexing their new pages.
What Are People Saying?
Bloggers and SEOs first observed the volatility and mass deindexing in the final days of May 2025. The earliest account was from Jason Kilgore, who, in a May 26, 2025, post on LinkedIn, reported that Google was deindexing pages from a site he managed.
On Bluesky, Vijay Chauhan reported that millions of pages had been deindexed across multiple sites since sometime after May 20. Multiple other bloggers also shared reports of the mass deindexing they observed on their own sites.
This one was 25M before, but now it has been reduced to 18M. It's not just happening to me; there are many complaints going on Twitter and in the Search Console community
— Vijay Chauhan 📈 (@vijaychauhanseo.bsky.social) 2025-06-05T09:41:24.785Z
On X (formerly Twitter), Glenn Gabe advised bloggers experiencing drops to ensure they did not block the URLs using their robots.txt file.
In response, Gagan Ghotra reported that Google was deindexing pages that were not blocked in the robots.txt file. He reported that the mass deindexing also affected his SEO friends, including one who lost two million pages between May 27 and 28, 2025.
Seems like something else! For this one it didn't have any under "Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt" but usual indexed pages dropped. Earlier today I checked in with few other SEO friends, for one of them its a drop of around 4 million pages in 2 days (27/28 May). pic.twitter.com/GyusacJHw5
— Gagan Ghotra (@gaganghotra_) June 4, 2025
In a follow-up response, Gagan reported that the number of pages Google crawled but did not index was actually increasing. These pages were not blocked using the robots.txt file. Google also reported them as “Crawled – currently not indexed,” indicating this was not a robots.txt issue.
"Crawled – currently not indexed" is spiking pic.twitter.com/G9KiRXcicU
— Gagan Ghotra (@gaganghotra_) June 4, 2025
Interestingly, on X, @kameshgoud mentioned that some of the pages Google reported as “Crawled – currently not indexed” were actually indexed and appeared in search results pages.
This is my point. The pages *were still indexed* although Google said they weren't indexed. You need to check the urls being reported. I'll share something next that can help with that in bulk. https://t.co/fq3gwMqbYK
— Glenn Gabe (@glenngabe) June 5, 2025
What Is Google Saying?
Many SEOs suspect the mass deindexing is the result of a bug or an unconfirmed Google update. Others suggest that Google could have changed how it reports its indexed pages, or may be testing one or more systems in preparation for an upcoming update.
However, Jon Mueller, Google’s Search Advocate, dismissed the mass deindexing as a non-issue in a June 6, 2025, post on Bluesky. He added that what Google decides to index changes over time.
Nit – these are just graphs, not examples. But from looking at other examples, I don't see an issue. We don't index all content, and what we index can change over time.
In another post from June 6, 2025, Jon clarified that the deindexing is unrelated to a core update.
(thanks for the URL – I'll pass it on to the team to check)But, no, this is not related to a core update.
On June 10, 2025, John Mueller responded to another blogger who reported experiencing mass deindexing on their site.
John mentioned that the site, which the blogger claimed was an educational platform, contained lots of unrelated content when he searched for certain keywords on Bing. However, the same content did not show up on Google.
One of the things I noticed is that there's a lot of totally unrelated content on the site. Is that by design? If you go to Bing and use [site:tpointtech.com watch online], [site:tpointtech.com sexy], [site:tpointtech.com top 10] , similarly probably in your Search Console, it looks really weird.
What Else People Observed
SEOs and bloggers have reported multiple volatilities since March 27, 2025, when Google completed the March 2025 Core Update. The volatilities have occurred every week and continued with this unconfirmed update.
Some bloggers also tried to link this volatility and mass deindexing to Google’s release of AI Mode in the US. AI mode was previously released to a limited number of US users on March 5, 2025, but became available to everyone in the US on May 20, 2025.
Joe Youngblood specifically mentioned this when he said Google was deindexing content to slash costs and increase ad revenue. In a follow-up comment to that post, he suggested that Google was replacing blogs with AI.
Same but I've been tracking the issue since and it fits with everything happening.
Cull the web, release AI, try to being things to heel, shove more ads.
— Joe Youngblood – SEO, Futurology, AI, Marketing (@YoungbloodJoe) June 5, 2025
What’s Next – Dealing With This Update
The situation remains unclear. While this could be another unconfirmed Google update, it behaves differently as pages are not just losing rankings but are actually being deindexed. Many new pages are not getting indexed either.
Therefore, this may be something more complex than a regular, unconfirmed Google update. Or it could be a non-issue, as Google and some SEOs have said. There are also speculations that the mass deindexing is actually Google removing low-quality and unrelated content from its index.
However, in the meantime, you should review your Google Search Console account for changes in the pages Google has indexed on your site. You should also monitor your traffic with Rank Math Analytics. If you observe a drop, refer to this video on recovering from a Google algorithm update.
