Robots.txt unblock
-
I'm currently having trouble with what appears to be a cached version of robots.txt. I'm being told via errors in my Google sitemap account that I'm denying Googlebot access to the entire site. I uploaded clean and "Allow" robots.txt yesterday, but receive the same error.
I've tried "Fetch as Googlebot" on the index and other pages, but still the error. Here is the latest:
| Denied by robots.txt |
| 11/9/11 10:56 AM |As I said, there in not blocking on the robots.txt for 24 hours.
HELP!
-
OK. I tried now the "Configuration > Crawler Access" but it still show Nov 8th.
Then, I took the risk, and clicked on "Fetch as Googlebot" - Taddam, I'm okay
I also able to resubmit the sitemaps XML.
-
You are showing the status from yesterday's date, Nov 8th. It seems Google has not attempted to crawl your site today. The next time it does attempt to crawl your site it will notice the changed robots.txt file and can then crawl normally.
I've reading that it can take 180 days(!) to unblock it. Is that right?
No. Google crawls much more frequently. Your site will likely be crawled again within the next day or so. Try checking again tomorrow.
-
Thank You Ryan.
It all started with human mistake. The webmaster copied a stage server into live server include "Disallow /" command
The robots text he uploaded yesterday, is the original. Should be okay.
Configuration > Crawler Access says
Downloaded Status Home page access thesite Nov 8, 2011 200 (Success) Googlebot is blocked from thesite I've reading that it can take 180 days(!) to unblock it. Is that right?
-
We cannot view your link as it is to your private Google WMT account.
Log into your Google WMT account then choose Site Configuration > Crawler Access. The screen will show how many hours or days it has been since your robots.txt file has been last updated.
Also, visit your site's robots.txt file to ensure it appears accurate. Most sites share their robots.txt file at www.mysite.com/robots.txt
Generally speaking, you want the cleanest robots.txt file possible. The robots.txt file should be the absolute last method to block crawler access in cases where no other method can be implemented. Many site owners do more harm then good with their settings.
If more assistance is needed please share the URL to your robots.txt file along with the URL to a page which is being inappropriately blocked.
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
-
Best practice for disallowing URLS with Robots.txt
Hi Everybody, We are currently trying to tidy up the crawling errors which are appearing when we crawl the site. On first viewing, we were very worried to say the least:17000+. But after looking closer at the report, we found the majority of these errors were being caused by bad URLs featuring: Currency - For example: "directory/currency/switch/currency/GBP/uenc/aHR0cDovL2NlbnR1cnlzYWZldHkuY29tL3dvcmt3ZWFyP3ByaWNlPTUwLSZzdGFuZGFyZHM9NzEx/" Color - For example: ?color=91 Price - For example: "?price=650-700" Order - For example: ?dir=desc&order=most_popular Page - For example: "?p=1&standards=704" Login - For example: "customer/account/login/referer/aHR0cDovL2NlbnR1cnlzYWZldHkuY29tL2NhdGFsb2cvcHJvZHVjdC92aWV3L2lkLzQ1ODczLyNyZXZpZXctZm9ybQ,,/" My question now is as a novice of working with Robots.txt, what would be the best practice for disallowing URLs featuring these from being crawled? Any advice would be appreciated!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | centurysafety0 -
Robots txt is case senstive? Pls suggest
Hi i have seen few urls in the html improvements duplicate titles Can i disable one of the below url in the robots.txt? /store/Solar-Home-UPS-1KV-System/75652
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Rahim119
/store/solar-home-ups-1kv-system/75652 if i disable this Disallow: /store/Solar-Home-UPS-1KV-System/75652 will the Search engines scan this /store/solar-home-ups-1kv-system/75652 im little confused with case senstive.. Pls suggest go ahead or not in the robots.txt0 -
Robots.txt question
I notice something weird in Google robots. txt tester I have this line Disallow: display= in my robots.text but whatever URL I give to test it says blocked and shows this line in robots.text for example this line is to block pages like http://www.abc.com/lamps/floorlamps?display=table but if I test http://www.abc.com/lamps/floorlamps or any page it shows as blocked due to Disallow: display= am I doing something wrong or Google is just acting strange? I don't think pages with no display= are blocked in real.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | rbai0 -
Robots.txt and redirected backlinks
Hey there, since a client's global website has a very complex structure which lead to big duplicate content problems, we decided to disallow crawler access and instead allow access to only a few relevant subdirectories. While indexing has improved since this I was wondering if we might have cut off link juice. Since several backlinks point to the disallowed root directory and are from there redirected (301) to the allowed directory I was wondering if this could cause any problems? Example: If there is a backlink pointing to example.com (disallowed in robots.txt) and is redirected from there to example.com/uk/en (allowed in robots.txt). Would this cut off the link juice? Thanks a lot for your thoughts on this. Regards, Jochen
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Online-Marketing-Guy0 -
Wildcarding Robots.txt for Particular Word in URL
Hey All, So I know that this isn't a standard robots.txt, I'm aware of how to block or wildcard certain folders but I'm wondering whether it's possible to block all URL's with a certain word in it? We have a client that was hacked a year ago and now they want us to help remove some of the pages that were being autogenerated with the word "viagra" in it. I saw this article and tried implementing it https://builtvisible.com/wildcards-in-robots-txt/ and it seems that I've been able to remove some of the URL's (although I can't confirm yet until I do a full pull of the SERPs on the domain). However, when I test certain URL's inside of WMT it still says that they are allowed which makes me think that it's not working fully or working at all. In this case these are the lines I've added to the robots.txt Disallow: /*&viagra Disallow: /*&Viagra I know I have the solution of individually requesting URL's to be removed from the index but I want to see if anybody has every had success with wildcarding URL's with a certain word in their robots.txt? The individual URL route could be very tedious. Thanks! Jon
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | EvansHunt0 -
Robots.txt
Hi all, Happy New Year! I want to block certain pages on our site as they are being flagged (according to my Moz Crawl Report) as duplicate content when in fact that isn't strictly true, it is more to do with the problems faced when using a CMS system... Here are some examples of the pages I want to block and underneath will be what I believe to be the correct robots.txt entry... http://www.XYZ.com/forum/index.php?app=core&module=search&do=viewNewContent&search_app=members&search_app_filters[forums][searchInKey]=&period=today&userMode=&followedItemsOnly= Disallow: /forum/index.php?app=core&module=search http://www.XYZ.com/forum/index.php?app=core&module=reports&rcom=gallery&imageId=980&ctyp=image Disallow: /forum/index.php?app=core&module=reports http://www.XYZ.com/forum/index.php?app=forums&module=post§ion=post&do=reply_post&f=146&t=741&qpid=13308 Disallow: /forum/index.php?app=forums&module=post http://www.XYZ.com/forum/gallery/sizes/182-promenade/small/ http://www.XYZ.com/forum/gallery/sizes/182-promenade/large/ Disallow: /forum/gallery/sizes/ Any help \ advice would be much appreciated. Many thanks Andy
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | TomKing0 -
Robots.txt Blocked Most Site URLs Because of Canonical
Had a bit of a "Gotcha" in Magento. We had Yoast Canonical Links extension which worked well , but then we installed Mageworx SEO Suite.. which broke Canonical Links. Unfortunately it started putting www.mysite.com/catalog/product/view/id/516/ as the Canonical Link - and all URLs with /catalog/productview/* is blocked in Robots.txt So unfortunately We told Google that the correct page is also a blocked page. they haven't been removed as far as I can see but traffic has certainly dropped. We have also , at the same time had some Site changes grouping some pages & having 301 redirects. Resubmitted site map & did a fetch as google. Any other ideas? And Idea how long it will take to become unblocked?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | s_EOgi_Bear0 -
Do you add 404 page into robot file or just add no index tag?
Hi, got different opinion on this so i wanted to double check with your comment is. We've got /404.html page and I was wondering if you would add this page to robot text so it wouldn't be indexed or would you just add no index tag? What would be the best approach? Thanks!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Rubix0