Google Webmaster indicates robots.text access error
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Seems that Google has not been crawling due to an access issue with our robots.txt
Late 2013 we migrated to a new host, WPEngine, so things might have changed, however this issue appears to be recent.A quick test shows I can access the file.
This is the Google Webmaster Tool message: http://www.growth trac dot com/: Googlebot can't access your site January 17, 2014 Over the last 24 hours, Googlebot encountered 62 errors while attempting to access your robots.txt. To ensure that we didn't crawl any pages listed in that file, we postponed our crawl. Your site's overall robots.txt error rate is 8.8%
Note the above message says 'over the last 24 hours', however the date is Jan-17
This is the response from our host:
Thanks for contacting WP Engine support! I looked into the suggestions listed below and it doesn't appear that these scenarios are the cause of the errors. I looked into the server logs and I was only able to find 200 server responses on the /robots.txt. Secondly I made sure that the server wasn't over loaded. The last suggestion doesn't apply to your setup on WP Engine. We do not have any leads as to why the errors occurred. If you have any other questions or concerns, please feel free to reach out to us.Google is crawling the site-- should I be concerned? If so, is there a way to remedy this? By the way, our robots file is very lean, only a few lines, not a big deal.
Thanks!
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Unfortunately, no. Free product = No Service
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Cody, thank you.
And... there is no 'Google contact' for these kinds of issues, correct? (dumb question).
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This happens from time to time on sites that I manage. I usually just check to make sure that it has been crawling since that date. If it has, then life is good.
If it hasn't, then I usually shout obscenities before trying to find the problem. The obscenities don't directly contribute to a solution, but it does seem to make me calm down a bit. Anyway, I digress.
Take a look at your webmaster tools, and see how well the site has been being crawled since that date. Is it all O.K.? If not, try to describe any changes you made in the weeks prior to that date.
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