Robots.txt - "File does not appear to be valid"
-
Good afternoon Mozzers!
I've got a weird problem with one of the sites I'm dealing with. For some reason, one of the developers changed the robots.txt file to disavow every site on the page - not a wise move!
To rectify this, we uploaded the new robots.txt file to the domain's root as per Webmaster Tool's instructions. The live file is: User-agent: * (http://www.savistobathrooms.co.uk/robots.txt)
I've submitted the new file in Webmaster Tools and it's pulling it through correctly in the editor. However, Webmaster Tools is not happy with it, for some reason. I've attached an image of the error.
Does anyone have any ideas? I'm managing another site with the exact same robots.txt file and there are no issues.
Cheers,
Lewis
-
Thanks for the quick response, Patrick. Why, if this robots.txt file is incorrect, does it yield no errors on other sites we use this on?
Cheers,
Lewis
-
Hi there
I want to say that needs an...
Allow: /
...or a "Group 2" specification.
I would take a look at Google Developer's Robots.txt Specifications and see where you have opportunities to remedy this issue.
Hope this helps! Good luck!
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
-
How to explain "No Return Tags" Error from non-existing page?
In the Search Console of our Google Webmaster account we see 3 "no return tags" errors. The attached screenshot shows the detail of one of these errors. I know that annotations must be confirmed from the pages they are pointing to. If page A links to page B, page B must link back to page A, otherwise the annotations may not be interpreted correctly. However, the originating URL (/#!/public/tutorial/website/joomla) doesn't exist anymore. How could these errors still show up? Screenshot%202016-07-11%2017.36.27.png?dl=0
Technical SEO | | Maximuxxx0 -
Disavowing the "right" bad backlinks
Hello, From july to november (this year), I gained 110.000 backlinks. Considering that I'm having trouble ranking well for any keyword in my niche (a niche that I was ranking #1 for several keywords and now I'm losing), I'm starting to believe that negative seo is affecting me. I already read several articles about negative seo, some telling this is a myth, others telling that negative SEO is alive and kicking... My site is about health and fitness in brazilian-portuguese language, and there's polish/chinese/english with warez/viagra/others drugs pointing to my domain and a massive links in comments with blogs without comment approval. Considering that all these new backlinks are not on my language and are clearly irrelevant, can I disavow them without fear of affecting my SEO even more ? Everytime you see someone talking about the disavow tool, is always the same warning: "cautiong when disavowing a link, you can hurt you site even more, removing a link that - in some way - was helping you". Any help or guidelines if I can remove this links safely would be greatly appreciated. Thank you and sorry for my english (it's not my native language) 5ZDjUcK.jpg
Technical SEO | | broncobr0 -
Robots.txt
I have a client who after designer added a robots.txt file has experience continual growth of urls blocked by robots,tx but now urls blocked (1700 aprox urls) has surpassed those indexed (1000). Surely that would mean all current urls are blocked (plus some extra mysterious ones). However pages still listing in Google and traffic being generated from organic search so doesnt look like this is the case apart from the rather alarming webmaster tools report any ideas whats going on here ? cheers dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Have I constructed my robots.txt file correctly for sitemap autodiscovery?
Hi, Here is my sitemap: User-agent: * Sitemap: http://www.bedsite.co.uk/sitemaps/sitemap.xml Directories Disallow: /sendfriend/
Technical SEO | | Bedsite
Disallow: /catalog/product_compare/
Disallow: /media/catalog/product/cache/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /categories/
Disallow: /blog/index.php/
Disallow: /catalogsearch/result/index/
Disallow: /links.html I'm using Magento and want to make sure I have constructed my robots.txt file correctly with the sitemap autodiscovery? thanks,0 -
Should i do "Article Marketing" for my quotes site?
Hello members, Should i do Article Marketing for my quote site to have quality backlinks to my site? will it improve my rankings?
Technical SEO | | rimon56930 -
Help with pages Google is labeling "Not Followed"
I am seeing a number of pages that I am doing 301 redirects on coming up under the "Not Followed" category of the advanced index status in google webmasters. Google says this might be because the page is still showing active content or the redirect is not correct. I don't know how to tell if the page is still showing active content, and if someone can please tell me how to determine this it would be greatly appreciated. Also if you can provide a solution for how to adjust my page to make sure that the content is not appearing to be active, that would be amazing. Thanks in advance, here is a few links to pages that are experiencing this: www.luxuryhomehunt.com/homes-for-sale/sunnyisles.html www.luxuryhomehunt.com/homes-for-sale/summerield.html
Technical SEO | | Jdubin0 -
I have a lot of warnings for "Overly-Dynamic URL"
I have a lot of warnings for "Overly-Dynamic URLs" but all the pages listed have a canonical with a static url , does this mean that I can ignore the warnings? Seems to me that I can but I just want to make sure?
Technical SEO | | Arnx1