--- title: "Google Briefly Keeps Important URLs Indexed After 4xx Errors" description: "Google's Gary Illyes says Search can briefly keep an important URL indexed after a 4xx error, as VLC's site found, and what your listing loses meanwhile." url: https://publishmyblog.com/seo/google-protects-important-urls-index/ section: "SEO" author: "Saeed Shahriar" published: 2026-11-06T22:41:45.086Z --- # Google Briefly Keeps Important URLs Indexed After 4xx Errors VLC's site kept its place in Google while serving an 'I'm a teapot' error, but lost its snippet and favicon, and most sites shouldn't count on the same cover. If you searched for VLC in Google recently, you may have seen its listing with no favicon and no snippet at all, just the link and an old title. **Google's Gary Illyes says a 418 status code caused it.** So why didn't the page drop out of your results? Illyes said Search can "temporarily protect the URL from falling out of the index right away" when an important URL returns a 4xx error. [Search Engine Roundtable reported it](https://www.seroundtable.com/google-protected-important-urls-index-42464.html) on November 5. ## A teapot code broke VLC's listing [VideoLAN asked for help on LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7523478628303736832/), saying something weird was showing in its Google presence and confusing its users. It hadn't changed anything, it said. The post drew 43 comments, and the guesses you'd expect: - The favicon was 16x16, under the 48x48 Google recommends. - The meta description tag had a capital D. - The http version was indexed instead of https. That said, Illyes pointed somewhere else. **VLC's server had been returning HTTP 418, the "I'm a teapot" code**, and Google treats it like most other 4xx errors: basically as not found. But Illyes wrote that VLC is arguably one of the most important pages on the internet. So Search held on to it. ## What a protected page still loses Protection keeps the link in the results, but Google no longer knew what was on the page, so it had almost nothing to put beside that link. VLC's listing ended up like this: - Kept: the link and the last good title Google had. - Lost: the snippet. - Lost: the favicon, the part SEOs asked about. VLC's site now returns 200 OK, and Illyes expects the listing to recover soon. ## Search Engine Roundtable's own favicon went too Barry Schwartz, who runs Search Engine Roundtable, says **his own site's favicon vanished from Google for a few days** in late October, even though he hadn't changed anything on it. Then it came back. He had tweaked Cloudflare settings, and he suspects the [PHP2Shell flaws](https://publishmyblog.com/website-tools/php2shell-critical-php-flaws/), though he isn't sure. ## What we checked Google's own page on [how HTTP status codes affect its crawlers](https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/troubleshooting/http-status-codes) doesn't mention the cover Illyes described, so for now that rests on what he said about one site. We read it on 6 November: - Indexed URLs that start returning a 4xx "are removed from the index", with no exception for important URLs. - 418 isn't on the page. More exotic status codes like the teapot "aren't covered". - A 5xx is gentler, because Google keeps URLs that are already indexed for a while and only drops them out of the index if the server error goes on. We also loaded videolan.org with Googlebot's user agent. **It returned 200 OK on 6 November.** Fixed. ## Why it matters My read: don't count on it. Illyes didn't say how long the cover lasts. Of course, he called VLC arguably one of the internet's most important pages. Is your blog on that list? I'd assume it isn't, and plan as if a 4xx could start pulling your pages out. **Check the status code your server sends Googlebot.** Your browser can't tell you. A firewall rule, a bot-protection plugin or a CDN setting you forgot about can send crawlers an error while you, logged in on your own laptop, see a normal page. Running a WAF or a security plugin? Start with these: - The Page indexing report in Search Console, for pages that suddenly show "Not found (404)" or another 4xx reason. - URL Inspection's live test on your homepage. - Your uptime monitor, set to alert you on any status code that isn't 200 OK. If you take your site offline on purpose, serve a 503, which tells crawlers to come back later. Our [technical SEO audit checklist](https://publishmyblog.com/guides/technical-seo-audit-checklist/) covers your other status checks. A missing favicon alone can be the [redirect rule in Google's favicon docs](https://publishmyblog.com/seo/googlebot-favicon-redirects/). Snippet gone too? Check the status code first. ## Common Questions **Does Google keep a page in search results if it returns a 4xx error?** Sometimes, for a short while. Google's Gary Illyes says Search can temporarily protect an important URL from dropping out of the index, as it did for VLC's website after a 418 error. **Why does a Google result show no snippet or favicon?** One cause is the page returning an error to Googlebot: with VLC's site, Google had only the link and the last good title Google had, because it no longer knew what was on the page. **How does Google treat the HTTP 418 "I'm a teapot" status code?** Like most other 4xx errors: basically as not found, according to Google's Gary Illyes. VLC's website lost its snippet and favicon while serving it. ## Sources - [Google Search Can Temporarily Protect Important URLs From Dropping Out Of The Index](https://www.seroundtable.com/google-protected-important-urls-index-42464.html), Search Engine Roundtable - [Help :) We are looking for someone who can help us a bit on our SEO and Google Search Console | VideoLAN](https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7523478628303736832/), LinkedIn - [How HTTP Status Codes Affect Google's Crawlers](https://developers.google.com/crawling/docs/troubleshooting/http-status-codes), Google for Developers