Google Search Console Shows ‘Host Load Exceeds Limit’ — Still Unresolved

While performing some overdue maintenance on my site, I noticed that traffic had plummeted to an alarming degree — impressions had dropped to less than 1/10,000 of previous levels. Time to investigate.

The site was not indexed in Google Search Console

This turned out to be the culprit. For some reason, pages were marked as “not indexed,” meaning they weren’t appearing in Google search results at all.

I checked sitemaps and other settings but found nothing obviously wrong…

So I tried manually submitting an indexing request, only to get “Indexing request failed.”

Looking at the details, the “Page fetch” step showed “Failed: Host load exceeds limit.”

My server is admittedly modest, but it wasn’t under heavy load at all… yet Google’s systems flagged it as overloaded.

Searching for this issue revealed that quite a few people are experiencing the same problem, and there is currently no known fix.

It seems the only option is to submit feedback to Google.

The feedback form is available at the link below, though it appears to be English-only.

If enough reports are filed, Google will hopefully prioritize a fix. If you’re experiencing this issue, please submit feedback.

Other support resources – Search Console Help (google.com)

(Update) A reader shared that you can also send feedback via the “Send feedback” option in the bottom-left of the main menu.

Thank you for sharing this information.

はじめまして。
ここ（下画像参照）でも簡単にフィードバックできると思うので、追記とフィードバックもお願いしたいです。

経緯や鍾愛まとめているので、参考にURLも添付します。https://t.co/TTVjR7J2rZ pic.twitter.com/SfsHlxLKyi

— 福袋最新情報・予約・ネタバレまとめ (@dorama0618) October 22, 2023

I’ll update this article if and when a solution is found.