Why is robots.txt blocking URL's in sitemap?
-
Hi Folks,
Any ideas why Google Webmaster Tools is indicating that my robots.txt is blocking URL's linked in my sitemap.xml, when in fact it isn't?
I have checked the current robots.txt declarations and they are fine and I've also tested it in the 'robots.txt Tester' tool, which indicates for the URL's it's suggesting are blocked in the sitemap, in fact work fine.
Is this a temporary issue that will be resolved over a few days or should I be concerned.
I have recently removed the declaration from the robots.txt that would have been blocking them and then uploaded a new updated sitemap.xml. I'm assuming this issue is due to some sort of crossover.
Thanks
Gaz
-
Brilliant, thanks for the clarification Matt. Much appreciated.
-
Yes, it should clear up by itself after a day or two. Google will need to recrawl the robots.txt file next time they visit your site. It should clear up then. If you make immediate changes and try to resubmit a sitemap, you almost always get this issue.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google selecting incorrect URL as canonical: 'Duplicate, submitted URL not selected as canonical'
Hi there, A number of our URLs are being de-indexed by Google. When looking into this using Google Search Console the same message is appearing on multiple pages across our sites: 'Duplicate, submitted URL not selected as canonical' 'IndexingIndexing allowed? YesUser-declared canonical - https://www.mrisoftware.com/ie/products/real-estate-financial-software/Google-selected canonical - https://www.mrisoftware.com/uk/products/real-estate-financial-software/'Has anyone else experienced this problem?How can I get Google to select the correct, user-declared canoncial? Thanks.
Technical SEO | | nfrank0 -
How to get into Google's Tops Stories?
Hi All, I have been doing research for a few weeks and I cannot for the life of me figure out why I cannot get my website (Racenet) into the top stories in Google. We are in Google News, have "news article" schema, have AMP pages. Our news articles also perform quite well organically and we typically dominate the Google News section. We have two main competitors (Punters and Just Horse Racing) who are both in top stories and I cannot find anything that we are doing that they aren't. Apparently the AMP "news article" schema is incorrect and that could be the reason why we aren't showing up in Google Top Stories, but I can't find anything wrong with the schema and it looks the same as our competitors. For example: https://search.google.com/structured-data/testing-tool/u/0/#url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.racenet.com.au%2Fnews%2Fblake-shinn-booked-to-ride-doncaster-handicap-favourite-alizee-20190331%3FisAmp%3D1 Does anyone have any ideas of why I cannot get my site into Google Top Stories? Any and all help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks! 🙂
Technical SEO | | Saba.Elahi.M.0 -
How google bot see's two the same rel canonicals?
Hi, I have a website where all the original URL's have a rel canonical back to themselves. This is kinda like a fail safe mode. It is because if a parameter occurs, then the URL with the parameter will have a canonical back to the original URL. For example this url: https://www.example.com/something/page/1/ has this canonical: https://www.example.com/something/page/1/ which is the same since it's an original URL This url https://www.example.com/something/page/1/?parameter has this canonical https://www.example.com/something/page/1/ like i said before, parameters have a rel canonical back to their original url's. SO: https://www.example.com/something/page/1/?parameter and this https://www.example.com/something/page/1/ both have the same canonical which is this https://www.example.com/something/page/1/ Im telling you all that because when roger bot tried to crawl my website, it gave back duplicates. This happened because it was reading the canonical (https://www.example.com/something/page/1/) of the original url (https://www.example.com/something/page/1/) and the canonical (https://www.example.com/something/page/1/) of the url with the parameter (https://www.example.com/something/page/1/?parameter) and saw that both were point to the same canonical (https://www.example.com/something/page/1/)... So, i would like to know if google bot treats canonicals the same way. Because if it does then im full of duplicates 😄 thanks.
Technical SEO | | dos06590 -
What's the best way to integrate off site inventory?
I can't seem to make any progress with my car dealership client in rankings or traffic. I feel like I've narrowed out most of the common problems, the only other thing I can see is that all their inventory is on a subdomain using a dedicated auto dealership software. Any suggestion of a better way to handle this situation? Am I missing something obvious? The url is rcautomotive.com Thanks for your help!
Technical SEO | | GravitateOnline0 -
Robots txt. in page with 301 redirect
We currently have a a series of help pages that we would like to disallow from our robots txt. The thing is that these help pages are located in our old website, which now has a 301 redirect to current site. Which is the proper way to go around? 1- Add the pages we want to disallow to the robots.txt of the new website? 2- Break the redirect momentarily and add the pages to the robots.txt of the old one? Thanks
Technical SEO | | Kilgray0 -
Lots of Pages Dropped Out of Google's Index?
Until yesterday, my website had about 1200 pages indexed in Google. I did lots of changes: removed low quality content, rewrote passable content to make it better, wrote high quality content, got lots of likes and shares on social networks, etc. Now this morning I see that out of 1252 pages submitted, only 691 are indexed. Is that a temporary situation related to the recent updates? Anyone seeing this? What should I interpret about this?
Technical SEO | | sbrault740 -
Unused url 'A' contains frameset - can it damage the other site B?
Client has an old unused site 'A' which I've discovered during my backlink research. It contains this source code below which frames the client's 'proper' site B inside the old unused url A in the browser address. Quick question - will google penalise the website B which is the one I'm optimising? Should the client be using a redirect instead? <frameset <span class="webkit-html-attribute-name">border='0' frameborder='0' framespacing='0'></frameset <span> <frame src="http: www.clientwebsite.co.ukb" frameborder="0" noresize="noresize" scrolling="yes"></frame src="http:> Please go to http://www.clientwebsite.co.ukB <noframes></noframes> Thanks, Lu.
Technical SEO | | Webrevolve0 -
Structuring URL's for better SEO
Hello, We were rolling our fresh urls for our new service website. Currently we have our structure as www.practo.com/health/dental/clinic/bangalore We like to have it as www.practo.com/health/dental-clinic-bangalore Can someone advice us better which one of the above structure would work out better and why? Should this be a focus of attention while going ahead since this is like a search engine platform for patients looking out for actual doctors. Thanks, Aditya
Technical SEO | | shanky10