Search Console has a button called Validate Fix that tells Google that you’ve fixed an indexing issue. In the last episode of Unofficial researchGoogle’s John Mueller explained what clicking on it does and when it’s best to use it.
What is “Validate Fix” for?
When you click on an issue in Search Console, “Validate Fix” is one of the first things you’ll see. It appears prominently at the top of the page, which is part of the reason people use it more than they should.
When you ask Google to validate a “not found (404)” issue, it starts by examining a sample URLs affected by this issue. If the problem still appears on one of these pages, validation stops. If the sample comes back clean, Search Console queues the rest of the known affected URLs for recrawling, not your entire site.
Mueller described what this gets you:
“So the way marking as fixed works is that we try a sample of the pages that you tell us are fixed. And if we find that they are actually fixed, then in most cases we will trigger a faster recrawl of the other pages.”
Clicking on validate the fix advances a new analysis, Mueller continues:
“It’s not so much about waiting to see if it actually works better, but we’re going to try to re-explore that a little bit more quickly.”
The button is simply a way to request a faster process; it is not a compulsory exam. If you choose to ignore it, Google will still detect your fixes during its regular crawling.
Why does this assume you fixed everything
Validation is tied to a particular issue, so it assumes you’ve resolved every instance of that issue, not just one page. If you click the button and some issues remain, the check will fail. This button is best used when you have fixed all pages showing this error, not just one URL. To correct a single URL, the URL Inspection Tool and a reindex request are more appropriate options.
On a large site, you can validate more quickly by first filtering the report on a sitemap of your most important pages, then requesting validation against that subset. A smaller set clears more quickly than a set that includes all affected URLs on the site.
When the button wins the click
A server or CDN may start returning 404 or 403 errors to Googlebot, especially when bot protection is triggered during heavy crawling, causing genuine pages to be removed from the index.
Mueller pointed out that this was a good use of the recheck button. Once the issue is resolved, the pages are still there but are logged as errors in Google and using the button prompts Google to recheck them. This is particularly useful for speeding up the recrawl of multiple pages deleted by mistake. Conversely, if a section that was deleted now returns 404 errors, this indicates correct behavior and no validation is necessary.
Why it matters
The button is located at the top of each issue page, just above the list of reported URLs. It’s designed to make you view each flagged URL as a task, with “Validate Fix” as a way to mark it as complete.
Before you click, it’s helpful to ask yourself if you’ve actually fixed anything. If you fixed a server or CDN issue that was causing pages to be deleted, clicking the button speeds up the recrawl and allows you to recheck those pages sooner. However, if the report only shows the results of your recent changes, there is no need to click the button and you can better spend your time focusing on the real issues that need your attention.
Looking to the future
Most indicators in the Page Index report will clear themselves, as most were never a problem to begin with. When Google recrawls a page and notices that the problem is gone, it automatically updates the count, even if you haven’t clicked “Submit Fix.” 404 errors, redirects, and expected canonical edits will naturally decrease as Google rechecks these pages.
Featured Image: Ployker/Shutterstock
