Robots.txt file issue.
-
Hi,
Its my third thread here and i have created many like it on many webmaster communities.I know many pro are here so badly needs help.
Robots.txt blocked 2k important URL's of my blogging site
http://Muslim-academy.com/ Especially of my blog area which are bringing good number of visitors daily.My organic traffic declined from 1k daily to 350.
I have removed the robots.txt file.Resubmitted existing Sitemap.Used all Fetch to index options and 50 URL submission option in Bing Webmaster Tool.
What Can I do know to have these blocked URL's back in Google index?
1.Create a NEW sitemap and submit it again in Google webmaster and bing webmaster tool?
2.Bookmark,linkbuilding or share the URL's.I did a lot of bookmarking for blocked URL's.
I fetch the list of blocked URLS Using BING WEBMASTER TOOLS.
-
Robert some good signs of life.New sitemap shows 5080 pages submitted and 4817 indexed.
These remaining pages are surely blocked ones?RightRobert though there is some improvement in Impressions and Clicks.Thanks a lot for staying that long with me solving this issue.
-
Christopher,
Have you looked at indexing in GWMT to see if they have indexed, how many pages, etc.?
-
Got your point but I Resubmit and its status is still pending.
I have test it and it was working but when I submit it 2 days ago up till now its status is pending. -
No, when you resubmit or submit a "new" sitemap, it just tells Google this is the sitemap now. There is no content issue with a sitemap.
Best,Robert
-
Just one last question Robert.Does not the duplicate sitemap creates duplicate pages in searches?
Sorry my question may looks like Crazy to you but at the moment with applying every possible fix I do not mess up and make things even more worse.
-
Given the only issue was the robots.txt error, I would resubmit. I do think it would not hurt to generate a sitemap and submit that in case there may be something you are missing though.
Best
-
Robert the question is either I need to create a new sitemap or resubmit the existing one?
-
Hello Christopher
It appears you have done a good deal to remediate the situation already. I would resubmit a sitemap to Google also. Have you looked in WMT to see what is now indexed? I would look at the graph of indexed and robots.txt and see if you are moving the needle upward again.
This begs a second question of "How did it happen?" You stated, "Robots.txt blocked 2k important URL's of my blogging site" and that sounds like it just occurred out of the ether. I would want to know that I had found the reason and make sure I have a way to keep it from happening going forward. (just a suggestion).Lastly, using the Index Status in WMT should be a great way to learn how effective what you tried in fixing it is. I like knowing that type of data and storing it somewhere retrievable for the future.
Best to you,
Robert
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
-
Drupal SEO Issues
Hi, I have two questions regarding my enterprise website. It is built on the Drupal CMS. First, and in looking at Google Analytics, I'm seeing more than 6k pages listed, but over 5k have received less than 10 page views in six months. In fact, most of them are not really content pages at all. The URLs I'm seeing listed, which to me indicates actual crawlable content in GA, shows pages like this: http://www.domainname.com/node/2153
Reporting & Analytics | | jaccardi62
http://www.domainname.com/company/careers?gnk=apply&gni=8a87142e4d086a73014d2a0d65242b8e&gns=glassdoor+free
http://www.domainname.com/blog?page=1
http://www.domainname.com/resources/videos?field_video_category_value=all&page=4&page=1
http://www.domainname.com/search/site?search_api_views_fulltext=talent+pool What is the problem here? Why are these non-pages being indexed as content and why are they showing up in GA? Second question is about my blog and blog best practices. While I know blog content is important for SEO, why is my site blog pagination being indexed as content. For example, these "pages" are showing up in SERPs: http://www.domainname.com/blog/tag/business_intelligence?page=2
http://www.domainname.com/blog/topic/expansion?page=5
http://www.domainname.com/blog/weeks_news_april_26 What is the best way to fix this? Thanks in advance for your help!0 -
Internal Referral Traffic Issue due to https/http?
Hi Mozzers, we´re running a secured https account section on our website including a messaging center where lots of non secured own URLs are being shared among the users. Is there a possibility that a user clicking on one of the shared URLs within the https section triggering another session thats been counted as direct traffic? Thanks for your help! Greets
Reporting & Analytics | | LocalIM
Manson0 -
Referral issue in Google analytics
We have an eCommerce website that counts paypal as a referral source in Analytics. The site takes people to Paypal to make a payment and then back to the website to a Thank You page once that payment has been made. Due to this, Analytics sees this as a conversion that has come from Paypal, and also records it as a referral source, when we know this is not really the case. This also distorts the data in analytics and prohibits us from clearly seeing which channels sales have come from. Is there anyway in Analytics to include Paypal as a part of the website so that it does not record Paypal as a separate referral website?
Reporting & Analytics | | Gavo0 -
Any issues with Google impressions dropping in Webmaster Tools?
I'm seeing a drop in impressions across all my websites that are hosted at a certain location. Just wanted to make sure that it is not some reporting issue that others are seeing.
Reporting & Analytics | | tdawson090 -
Adding Something to htaccess File
When I did a google search for site.kisswedding.com (my website) I noticed that google is indexing all of the https versions of my site. First of all, I don't get it because I don't have an SSL certificate. Then, last night I did what my host (bluehost) told me to do. I added the below to my htaccess file. Below rule because google is indexing https version of site - https://my.bluehost.com/cgi/help/758RewriteEngine OnRewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^kisswedding.com$ [OR]RewriteCond %{HTTP_HOST} ^kisswedding.com$RewriteCond %{SERVER_PORT} ^443$RewriteRule ^(.*)$ http://www.kisswedding.com [R=301,L] Tonight I when I did a google search for site:kisswedding.com all of those https pages were being redirected to my home page - not the actually page they're supposed to be redirecting to. I went back to Bluehost and they said and 301 redirect shouldn't work because I don't have an SSL certificate. BUT, I figure since it's sorta working I just need to add something to that htaccess rule to make sure it's redirected to the right page. Someone in the google webmaster tools forums told me to do below but I don't really get it? _"to 301 redirect from /~kisswedd/ to the proper root folder you can put this in the root folder .htaccess file as well:_Redirect 301 /~kisswedd/ http://www.kisswedding.com/" Any help/advice would be HUGELY appreciated. I'm a bit at a loss.
Reporting & Analytics | | annasus0 -
Google Analytics Goal Funnel Visualization Issue
I've setup a goal funnel but am having an issue when I look at the funnel visualization. It doesn't appear to be recognizing the 1st step of the funnel that I've defined in the goal edit page. The "Property Listing page view" is located at /listings/xxx where xxx is the number of the property. Within the funnel, I've added /listings/*, but when I go to see the funnel visualization, I see 0 counts for this step (even though it clearly shows on the entrance page to the left "/listings/622, etc". I've attached a .pdf with a few images to help make this clearer. Any thoughts? CRD-Funnel.pdf
Reporting & Analytics | | chrisfree0 -
Meta Robots Tag - What's it really mean?
I used on a handful of pages recently and noticed that they're still popping up in the Google search index. I'd like to keep these from appearing, so I figured I needed a directive statement with stronger semantic meaning. From what I understand, is what I'm looking for. Using this will keep Google from not only crawling the page, but indexing the page, as well. I decided to see what the official robotstxt.org website said about it, so I checked (link here): the NOFOLLOW directive only applies to links on this page. It's entirely likely that a robot might find the same links on some other page without a NOFOLLOW (perhaps on some other site), and so still arrives at your undesired page. So, is their explanation saying that the page itself will be indexed, but the content / links on it won't be followed / indexed? Let me hear your thoughts, mozzers.
Reporting & Analytics | | mudbugmedia0