Recently launched, new meta tags in google snippet control was hit by a bug. Because of hitting with a bug, google was not able to index the specific pages. If the user is using a max image preview tag with a value zero then Google will not index that particular page.
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According to Google, the company has addressed the issue and a solution is being rolled out. The affected pages of the websites are under reprocessed.
In short, if a user uses max image preview in this type that means it gives signals to Google for not indexing the image. Therefore, max image preview with a value none was treated as a no-index meta tag.
Tweet Of Addressing An Issue:
@rustybrick Hi Barry have you seen anything from Google about the max-image-preview tag being treated by Googlebot as a noindex when set to none. Seen it w/out nofollow plus the E.g. below w/ nofollow. Feels like the issue needs clarification from Google https://t.co/KraaujBh2c
— Dan Nutter (@VeryDanNutter) November 21, 2019
Tweet by John Mueller:
Thanks! I (coincidentally) noticed this as well recently, and the team has made some changes to fix that. I'm guessing it'll be live soon! We plan to reprocess all of the affected URLs to be able to take it into account a bit faster.
— ? John ? (@JohnMu) November 21, 2019
Tweet By Danny Sullivan:
I'll pass it on but I'm unaware of this being an issue.
— Danny Sullivan (@dannysullivan) November 21, 2019