Got stuck for two hours trying to figure out why my new blog post wasn't showing up in search results

I published a new article on my site yesterday about fixing a common plumbing issue, and I was sure it would rank. I checked Google after an hour, nothing. Checked again after three hours, still nothing. I started digging into my site's settings, thinking maybe I had the 'noindex' tag on by mistake, but it was fine. I even cleared my cache and used a different browser. The problem was my sitemap.xml file hadn't been updated by my plugin for some reason, so Google wasn't seeing the new page. I had to manually submit it through Search Console, and it finally got indexed this morning. Has anyone else had a plugin just stop updating their sitemap without any warning?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_eric18d ago

Plugins are usually pretty reliable though. Maybe you just needed to wait a bit longer for Google to find it on its own.

piper_smith18d ago

Hey @the_eric, I actually saw a post the other day about plugin indexing being super slow right now! The person said they waited weeks and Google still hadn't found it. Makes me wonder if there's a bigger delay going on.

ross.kevin8d agoMost Upvoted

Wait two hours and you're already digging into sitemaps? That's not even enough time for a fresh cup of coffee to get cold. Google takes way longer than that to find new stuff most days.