Google Search Console blocks Shortpixel AI CDN

  • sosfactory

    (@sosfactory)


    4 weeks ago

    After A LOT of research on my side (support was responsive but unfortunately not helpful), I have found that cdn.shortpixel.ai is blocked by Google Search Console. How it affects your SEO may be subject to discussion, but definitively, the facts I’m going to expose are not a good sign.

    I have read the documentation regarding indexing, and while I understand the theory, the truth is Google disagrees: kb.shortpixel.com/knowledge-base/article/will-my-sites-images-be-indexed-as-coming-from-shortpixel/

    Signs that Google disagrees:

    • In Search Console>live test >Screenshot diplays broken images (all of them).
    • “More info” tab on url inspector live shows cdn.shortpixel. ai urls not being loaded. “Other error”
    • Even my favicon is blocked on the results in Google search images.

    I can’t affirm that my Google Images traffic has dropped because of this plugin, but the truth is that my Google Image traffic has decreased dramatically since I activated it a few months ago.

    • A dramatic amount of images have been deindexed since I installed the CDN.
    • The images that are currently indexed contain a link to the original image on my server (featured images on posts or pages that link to the original image via meta tags, product images, or widgets that, on click, serve the original image from my own server). So my guess is that Google is crawling the urls of the original image.
    • Dramatic traffic drop since I’m using short-pixel CDN.
    • Few posts lately point to the same issue.

    How did I arrive at the conclusion that Shortpixel AI is the problem?

    • I have tried deactivating all plugins but Shortpixel. Problem persist.
    • I deactivated my theme and activated the WordPress default theme. Problem persist.
    • Deactivating Cloudflare. Problem persist.
    • I deactivated all Hotlink protection. Problem persist.
    • I activated the new AI engine and the problem persist.
    • Only when I deactivate Shortpixel, magic… it works! I use my theme + Cloudflare + Hotlink protection and a bunch of plugins, and the Search Console url inspector loads all the resources; there are no broken images in the screenshot, and the favicon appears on Google Images results.

    Support apparently has no idea about what is going on, even when there are actually a couple of recent threads pointing to the same problem. So up to date I assume there is NO SOLUTION.

    MY SOLUTION:

    I had another website that uses a different plugin developed by another company that also uses Shortpixel server, and it has the ability to serve images via CDN. Just by chance, I decided to switch the license to this website, and I found out that everything works fine in Search Console!!!

    This plugin uses sp-ao.shortpixel.ai server and it seems Google likes it while Shortpixel AI uses cdn.shortpixel.ai and Google doesn’t, for reasons that I don’t know and that I won’t explore so support can do some work ??

    I took the time to write this long post for you, that, like me, has probably been hurt in your SEO (I’m an illustrator, so imagine how much damage it may have caused).

    I hope those insights point you in the right direction.

    All the best!
    Sergio

    • This topic was modified 3 weeks, 6 days ago by sosfactory.
    • This topic was modified 3 weeks, 6 days ago by sosfactory.
    • This topic was modified 3 weeks, 6 days ago by sosfactory.
Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Thread Starter sosfactory

    (@sosfactory)

    UPDATE: Only 1 day after I deactivated this plugin, old indexed images started to appear on Google Images. And not only when I Google for site:domain.com but also when I google for my targeted keywords.

    • This reply was modified 3 weeks, 6 days ago by sosfactory.
    Plugin Author ShortPixel

    (@shortpixel)

    @sosfactory Thank you for using ShortPixel, and thank you for taking the time to leave such a thorough and helpful review for others. We also appreciate your assistance in helping us get to the bottom of this issue through the support emails we exchanged.

    Identifying the source of a technical problem can sometimes be quite complex, especially with WordPress websites that have different plugins/themes and may be behind firewalls/Cloudflare, etc. Often, a problem occurs only under particular conditions that can’t be replicated on another site.

    In this case, it was incredibly helpful that you spent so much time assisting us in ruling out various possible causes and pinpointing the issue, which was a misconfigured “robots.txt” file. Since it returned a 500 error instead of 200 or even 404, Googlebot stopped trying to access the images entirely, leading to the problem you observed.

    We’re very sorry for all the trouble this caused, and I wanted to confirm that the problem has now been resolved.

    Thread Starter sosfactory

    (@sosfactory)

    I can’t edit my review, but I can post an update.

    Shortpixel AI works now as usual, and their support granted me a lifetime subscription for Shorpixel AI and also for Fastpixel as compensation for the damage caused.

    For my surprise, with only one click, my PageSpeed and GTmetrix went from 40 to 90% performance in mobile and from 80 to 99% in desktop.

    Hopefully this improvement will help me to recover the traffic lost really soon.

    Plugin Support Gerard Blanco

    (@sixaxis)

    Hi @sosfactory,

    We are glad you saw the improvement you were looking for! If you need any further assistance, we will be around.

    As for editing the review, the WordPress forums guidelines do not allow to post here links, but you just need to go to the reviews list page (see the breadcrumbs at the top of this page) and scroll down until you see your own review. There you will find the text box and the star rating to edit ??

    Thanks again for supporting ShortPixel!

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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