Skip to content
    Moz logo Menu open Menu close
    • Products
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Pro Home
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Home
      • STAT
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Home
      • Compare SEO Products
      • Moz Data
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis
      • Keyword Explorer
      • Link Explorer
      • Competitive Research
      • MozBar
      • More Free SEO Tools
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO
      • SEO Learning Center
      • Moz Academy
      • SEO Q&A
      • Webinars, Whitepapers, & Guides
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers
      • Agency Solutions
      • Enterprise Solutions
      • Small Business Solutions
      • The Moz Story
      • New Releases
    • Log in
    • Log out
    • Products
      • Moz Pro

        Your all-in-one suite of SEO essentials.

      • Moz Local

        Raise your local SEO visibility with complete local SEO management.

      • STAT

        SERP tracking and analytics for enterprise SEO experts.

      • Moz API

        Power your SEO with our index of over 44 trillion links.

      • Compare SEO Products

        See which Moz SEO solution best meets your business needs.

      • Moz Data

        Power your SEO strategy & AI models with custom data solutions.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Free SEO Tools
      • Domain Analysis

        Get top competitive SEO metrics like DA, top pages and more.

      • Keyword Explorer

        Find traffic-driving keywords with our 1.25 billion+ keyword index.

      • Link Explorer

        Explore over 40 trillion links for powerful backlink data.

      • Competitive Research

        Uncover valuable insights on your organic search competitors.

      • MozBar

        See top SEO metrics for free as you browse the web.

      • More Free SEO Tools

        Explore all the free SEO tools Moz has to offer.

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic
      Moz Pro

      NEW Keyword Suggestions by Topic

      Learn more
    • Learn SEO
      • Beginner's Guide to SEO

        The #1 most popular introduction to SEO, trusted by millions.

      • SEO Learning Center

        Broaden your knowledge with SEO resources for all skill levels.

      • On-Demand Webinars

        Learn modern SEO best practices from industry experts.

      • How-To Guides

        Step-by-step guides to search success from the authority on SEO.

      • Moz Academy

        Upskill and get certified with on-demand courses & certifications.

      • MozCon

        Save on Early Bird tickets and join us in London or New York City

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints
      Moz API

      Unlock flexible pricing & new endpoints

      Find your plan
    • Blog
    • Why Moz
      • Digital Marketers

        Simplify SEO tasks to save time and grow your traffic.

      • Small Business Solutions

        Uncover insights to make smarter marketing decisions in less time.

      • Agency Solutions

        Earn & keep valuable clients with unparalleled data & insights.

      • Enterprise Solutions

        Gain a competitive edge in the ever-changing world of search.

      • The Moz Story

        Moz was the first & remains the most trusted SEO company.

      • New Releases

        Get the scoop on the latest and greatest from Moz.

      Surface actionable competitive intel
      New Feature

      Surface actionable competitive intel

      Learn More
    • Log in
      • Moz Pro
      • Moz Local
      • Moz Local Dashboard
      • Moz API
      • Moz API Dashboard
      • Moz Academy
    • Avatar
      • Moz Home
      • Notifications
      • Account & Billing
      • Manage Users
      • Community Profile
      • My Q&A
      • My Videos
      • Log Out

    The Moz Q&A Forum

    • Forum
    • Questions
    • Users
    • Ask the Community

    Welcome to the Q&A Forum

    Browse the forum for helpful insights and fresh discussions about all things SEO.

    1. Home
    2. Moz Tools
    3. Moz Pro
    4. 403s: Are There Instances Where 403's Are Common & Acceptable?

    Moz Q&A is closed.

    After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.

    403s: Are There Instances Where 403's Are Common & Acceptable?

    Moz Pro
    4
    6
    1395
    Loading More Posts
    • Oldest to Newest
    • Newest to Oldest
    • Most Votes
    Reply
    • Reply as question
    Log in to reply
    This topic has been deleted. Only users with question management privileges can see it.
    • JJLWeber
      JJLWeber last edited by

      Hey All,

      Both MOZ & Webmaster tools have identified 403 errors on an editorial site I work with (using Drupal CMS). I looked into the errors and the pages triggering the 403 are all articles in draft status that are not being indexed. If I am not logged into our drupal and I try to access an article in draft status I get the 403 forbidden error.

      Are these 403's typical for an editorial site where editors may be trying to access an article in draft status while they are not logged in? Webmaster tools is showing roughly 350 pages with the 'Access Denied' 403 status.

      Are these harmful to rank?

      Thanks!

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
      • Cannetastic
        Cannetastic last edited by

        Hi guys and girls,

        With regards to this, ss there any problem for SEO that you can see with banning spam refers through Htaccess?

        So in these instances when a spam bots comes to the site, we throw a "Forbidden You don't have permission to access / on this server.", so basically a 403 error?

        We're considering this as a more permanent solution to using filters in GA.

        What do you think?

        Thanks,

        Gill.

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
        • JJLWeber
          JJLWeber last edited by

          Thanks Nicolas & Ruth. I realized the reason the pages are triggering errors is because there are published pages linking to those posts in draft. I imagine those draft posts were live at some point and then put back into draft.

          Im guessing if I kill all the links to those draft posts that will fix the issue.

          1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • RuthBurrReedy
            RuthBurrReedy @Bigb06 last edited by

            I agree that it's probably not a huge problem, but still something to clean up if you can - it would be best if crawlers weren't trying to access these pages.

            1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
            • RuthBurrReedy
              RuthBurrReedy last edited by

              If Moz and Webmaster Tools are showing the 403 error, it means that they are able to crawl to the URLs that are returning the 403 - so somewhere on your site or on the web, pages that are accessible by bots and crawlers are linking to these pages that don't exist yet. Having a bunch of errors on your site can impact Google's ability to crawl it well, which can impact your rankings, so it's best to get those cleaned up. In Webmaster Tools you should be able to click on the pages and see which pages are linking to them, so you can remove those links; you can do the same using a tool like Screaming Frog if you'd prefer. Good luck!

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
              • Bigb06
                Bigb06 last edited by

                Hello,

                No problem with these URLs, Drupal returns a 403 correctly because crawlers try to get draft content. Google and other search engines will not penalized you because of that : you can think of cart URLs or account URLs for ecommerce websites that may returns 403 the same way.

                RuthBurrReedy 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                • 1 / 1
                • First post
                  Last post

                Got a burning SEO question?

                Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.


                Start my free trial


                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.

                • See all categories

                Related Questions

                • chachakhota

                  What are Keywordbasket.com & Keyword-suggest-tool.com. Competitors have Tons of these

                  My client is in the Custom Scale Model industry.  They build Custom Aircraft Models, Custom Ship Models and more. Their competitor's Backlinks reports have a Ton of metrics coming from: http://www.keywordbasket.com  and https://www.keyword-suggest-tool.com There is line after line of these entries in the backlink report.  As much as 50 line entries.  what exactly is happening here?  Are they manually using these tools to generate search entries and caching this data in the form of Backlinks?  Please explain.   is this a Gray Hat Tactic?

                  Moz Pro | | chachakhota
                  0
                • CJolicoeur

                  Moz-Specific 404 Errors Jumped with URLs that don't exist

                  Hello, I'm going to try and be as specific as possible concerning this weird issue, but I'd rather not say specific info about the site unless you think it's pertinent. So to summarize, we have a website that's owned by a company that is a division of another company. For reference, we'll say that: OURSITE.com is owned by COMPANY1 which is owned by AGENCY1 This morning, we got about 7,000 new errors in MOZ only (these errors are not in Search Console) for URLs with the company name or the agency name at the end of the url. So, let's say one post is: OURSITE.com/the-article/ This morning we have an error in MOZ for URLs OURSITE.com/the-article/COMPANY1 OURSITE.com/the-article/AGENCY1 x 7000+ articles we have created. Every single post ever created is now an error in MOZ because of these two URL additions that seem to come out of nowhere. These URLs are not in our Sitemaps, they are not in Google... They simply don't exist and yet MOZ created an an error with them. Unless they exist and I don't see them. Obviously there's a link to each company and agency site on the site in the about us section, but that's it.

                  Moz Pro | | CJolicoeur
                  0
                • Dustless

                  What's the best way to search keywords for Youtube using Moz Keyword explorer?

                  I want to optimize my youtube channel using identified keywords, but I'm concerned that the keywords I'm identifying work well for SERP's but might not be how people search in Youtube. How do a distinguish my keywords to be targeted for Youtube?

                  Moz Pro | | Dustless
                  0
                • Dan-Lawrence

                  How long for authority to transfer form an old page to a new page via a 301 redirect? (& Moz PA score update?)

                  Hi How long aproximately does G take to pass authority via a 301 from an old page to its new replacement page ? Does Moz Page Authority reflect this in its score once G has passed it ? All Best
                  Dan

                  Moz Pro | | Dan-Lawrence
                  3
                • LabeliumUSA

                  Special Characters in URL & Google Search Engine (Index & Crawl)

                  G'd everyone, I need help with understanding how special characters impact SEO.  Eg. é , ë ô in words Does anyone have good insights or reference material regarding the treatment of Special Characters by Google Search Engine? how Page Title / Meta Desc with Special Chars are being index  & Crawl Best Practices when it comes to URLs - uses of Unicode, HTML entity references - when are where? any disadvantage using special characters Does special characters in URL have any impact on SEO performance & User search, experience. Thanks heaps, Amy

                  Moz Pro | | LabeliumUSA
                  0
                • Highline_Ideas

                  Need help understanding search filter URL's and meta tags

                  Good afternoon Mozzers, One of our clients is a real estate agent and on that site there is a search field that will allow a person to search by filtered categories. Currently, the URL structure makes a new URL for each filter option and in my Moz reports I get the report that there is missing meta data. However, the page is the same the filter options are different so I am at a loss as to how to proper tag our site to optimize those URL's. Can I rel canonical the URL's or alt rel them? I have been looking for a solution for a few days now and like I said I am at a loss of how to properly resolve these warning messages, or if I should even be concerned with the warning messages from Moz (obviously I should be concerned, they are warning messages for a reason). Thank you for your assistance in advance!

                  Moz Pro | | Highline_Ideas
                  0
                • vanessacolina

                  My page has a 302 redirect and I don't know how to get rid of it!

                  I use Internet Officer tool to see the 302 redirect but I check the redirects in the CPanel and there are none. In the .htaccess there are none either. I don't know where else to look 😞 The url is http://servicioshosting.com Can you guys help me? I can't set up a campaign because Google can't crawl the website. I can't setup the Facebook OpenGraph because of the redirect. error.jpg

                  Moz Pro | | vanessacolina
                  0
                • Sean_McDonnell

                  Error 403

                  I'm getting this message "We were unable to grade that page. We received a response code of 403. URL content not parseable" when using the On-Page Report Card.  Does anyone know how to go about fixing this?  I feel like I've tried everything.

                  Moz Pro | | Sean_McDonnell
                  0

                Get started with Moz Pro!

                Unlock the power of advanced SEO tools and data-driven insights.

                Start my free trial
                Products
                • Moz Pro
                • Moz Local
                • Moz API
                • Moz Data
                • STAT
                • Product Updates
                Moz Solutions
                • SMB Solutions
                • Agency Solutions
                • Enterprise Solutions
                Free SEO Tools
                • Domain Authority Checker
                • Link Explorer
                • Keyword Explorer
                • Competitive Research
                • Brand Authority Checker
                • Local Citation Checker
                • MozBar Extension
                • MozCast
                Resources
                • Blog
                • SEO Learning Center
                • Help Hub
                • Beginner's Guide to SEO
                • How-to Guides
                • Moz Academy
                • API Docs
                About Moz
                • About
                • Team
                • Careers
                • Contact
                Why Moz
                • Case Studies
                • Testimonials
                Get Involved
                • Become an Affiliate
                • MozCon
                • Webinars
                • Practical Marketer Series
                • MozPod
                Connect with us

                Contact the Help team

                Join our newsletter
                Moz logo
                © 2021 - 2025 SEOMoz, Inc., a Ziff Davis company. All rights reserved. Moz is a registered trademark of SEOMoz, Inc.
                • Accessibility
                • Terms of Use
                • Privacy

                Looks like your connection to Moz was lost, please wait while we try to reconnect.