Google is advising site owners that a message was recently sent via Search Console may contain errors due to a known bug.
The message Google is referring to was sent out recommending the use of domain properties in Search Console.
It begins by notifying the site owner how many impressions they’re missing out on by not having a verified domain property.
Many of these messages were received with a glaring error at the beginning where the site’s URL either had a few characters missing or was completely wrong.
In some cases people were getting these messages for domains they don’t have ownership of in Search Console.
This was a topic of discussion throughout the day on SEO Twitter as many in the community shared examples of the emails they received.
Got three such GSC emails for domain names where the first letter of the domain is missing. Definitely a bug.
— Barry Adams 📰 (@badams) January 27, 2021
I got one for https://t.co/ZsQdwLIcZU. I wish I owned that! pic.twitter.com/mB8nyaXyvF
— Barry Adams 📰 (@badams) January 27, 2021
Google confirms a bug caused these messages to be sent with the wrong URLs. But the information in the message is still relevant.
Messages Still Relevant Despite Error
It’s important not to send these messages to the trash too quickly because the information is accurate. Only the URLs came out wrong.
Here’s Google’s notice on the subject:
We recently sent out messages recommending domain properties in Search Console. Unfortunately, some were sent with a few characters missing in the beginning of the domain name. This is from a bug on our side and only affects the text URL shown in the message.
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) January 27, 2021
The rest of the message remains relevant for those sites. We've paused the messages, but some may still be underway. We're sorry about the confusion this has caused. pic.twitter.com/ou65PHWhwd
— Google Search Central (@googlesearchc) January 27, 2021
