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    4. Why Can't Googlebot Fetch Its Own Map on Our Site?

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    Why Can't Googlebot Fetch Its Own Map on Our Site?

    Technical SEO
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    • KempRugeLawGroup
      KempRugeLawGroup last edited by

      I created a custom map using google maps creator and I embedded it on our site. However, when I ran the fetch and render through Search Console, it said it was blocked by our robots.txt file. I read in the Search Console Help section that: 'For resources blocked by robots.txt files that you don't own, reach out to the resource site owners and ask them to unblock those resources to Googlebot."

      I did not setup our robtos.txt file. However, I can't imagine it would be setup to block google from crawling a map. i will look into that, but before I go messing with it (since I'm not familiar with it) does google automatically block their maps from their own googlebot? Has anyone encountered this before?

      Here is what the robot.txt file says in Search Console:

      User-agent: *
      Allow: /maps/api/js?
      Allow: /maps/api/js/DirectionsService.Route
      Allow: /maps/api/js/DistanceMatrixService.GetDistanceMatrix
      Allow: /maps/api/js/ElevationService.GetElevationForLine
      Allow: /maps/api/js/GeocodeService.Search
      Allow: /maps/api/js/KmlOverlayService.GetFeature
      Allow: /maps/api/js/KmlOverlayService.GetOverlays
      Allow: /maps/api/js/LayersService.GetFeature
      Disallow: /
      
      Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.
      
      Thanks,
      
      Ruben
      
      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • KempRugeLawGroup
        KempRugeLawGroup @Charles-O last edited by

        Awesome, Croy. That was extremely helpful.

        Thanks,

        Ruben

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • Charles-O
          Charles-O last edited by

          Hello Ruben!

          Not too long ago, I saw a hangout with John Mueller who got the same question and gives a logical answer. Here's the URL at timestamp 46:06 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i_xnKznRNCc&feature=player_embedded#t=2766

          I'd transcript if I had the time, but it will take you a couple of minutes. It essentially says that even though it is embedded, it won't access that block of content because maps.googleapis.com/robots.txt blocks it. If I understood wrong, please let me know!

          I had the same problem where part of my content was coming from the pins INSIDE the map, but since it was blocked, it couldn't reach the content itself. Had to do a workaround

          Hope it helps!

          EDIT: Just jumping back in to say that you should look back at your site. Seems like Google can correctly crawl its own map and the content served through it. Our site has no more problems related to this. November the 15th I still had issues, but today I've tested multiple times and it looked okay.

          Croy

          KempRugeLawGroup 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 4
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