Google reenables the validate fix feature in Search Console and adds new classifications

Google has reenabled the validate fix feature in Google Search Console while launching the new “more simplified” classifications for the coverage reports. This was expected, earlier this month Google temporarily disabled the validate fix feature in order to launch these new classification labels.

Validate fix is back. Now when you go into Google Search Console and click on some of the coverage reports, the “validate fix” button should be back. Google disabled it while upgrading the classification system. There was a notice that read “Limited functionality: We are making some minor updates in the next few days. During this period you will not be able to issue new validation requests.” That notice has been removed and you now have the validate fix feature back.

Here is a screenshot I took:

New classifications. As mentioned above, Google launched more simplified classifications for these reports. Instead of the coverage report showing errors, valid with warnings and valid; now the report just shows invalid or valid information.

Google said the URLs or items in the Search Console report are no longer grouped at the top level by three or more status categories, i.e. Valid, Warning, and Error. Now they are grouped or classified into two more broad statuses that reflect whether those URLs or items are invalid or not. Google said invalid means that there is a report-specific critical issue in the page or item, and not invalid means that the item might still contain warnings, but has no critical issues. The implications and exact terms for the valid and invalid states varies by report type, Google added.

Google explained “grouping the top-level item (a rich result for the rich result reports, a page or URL for the other reports) into two groups: pages or items with critical issues are labeled something like invalid; pages or items without critical issues are labeled something like valid. We think this new grouping will make it easier to see quickly which issues affect your site’s appearance on Google, in order to help you prioritize your fixes.”

New Tour. When you login and go to the coverage overview section, you can now click on “full report” and Google will ask you if you want to see a tour of the changes, here is what the tour looks like:

We have a lot more detail on these changes in our earlier story over here.

Why we care. This should make it easier for you to understand errors in Search Console reports and thus which items to prioritize over others. This change is just a reporting change and does not change how Google crawls, indexes or ranks your content. But it is a change and you need to understand what changed and why.

About The Author

Barry Schwartz a Contributing Editor to Search Engine Land and a member of the programming team for SMX events. He owns RustyBrick, a NY based web consulting firm. He also runs Search Engine Roundtable, a popular search blog on very advanced SEM topics. Barry can be followed on Twitter here.