Understanding how to fix a 403 issue with my website
-
Hi guys, I hope you can help solve a mystery for me!
My site FranceForFamilies.com has been around for 9 years and has always ranked well - at least until I launched a new Wordpress version earlier this year.
The purpose of the relaunch was to improve the look of the site, so I kept the content and meta titles the same but created a new design.
However, from the day of the new launch the search engine rankings have plummeted, to the point where most seem to have disappeared all together.
I have found that when Moz crawls the site, it only crawls one page.
I asked the Moz team about this and they said that the site is returning a 403. They also tested this using a curl and received a 406 response:
- curl -I www.franceforfamilies.com/
- HTTP/1.1 406 Not Acceptable
However, when I check our Google Webmaster tools I can't recreate the issue.
I don't really know what is going on, and I don't have the technical knowledge to solve this - can you help?
Thanks, Daniel
-
Thanks Lesley, I'll take a look at this and report back.
Best, Dan
-
Thanks Oscar, I'll take a look. However my issue is that I know what the problem is, but I don't know how to fix it.
-
Those two errors are generally generated by mod_security. Can you check to see if it is enabled on your server. If it is disable it and see if you still get the error.
-
Hello there,
I would suggest you to crawl your site with Screaming Frog, it will give you very detailed information about your site and it is very very helpful especially with this sort of errors/problems.
Good luck
Oscar
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
-
If I disavow bad Backlinks of my website. If, I create Backlinks again, those websites. Did that again become count in my Backlinks?
Hi, all please tell me. If I disavow bad Backlinks of my website. If, I create Backlinks again, those websites. Did that again become count in my Backlinks?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | sourav60 -
Schema for E-Commerce websites
Hi Guys. I am running a cleanup for the on page schema we use and will be moving the on page elements into tag manager. I have all the metas and schema for the products boxed off. My question today is what schema should I use for category pages. Granted there is Json-LD for aggregated reviews but I cant see or work out how or what to use for the category pages that have the lists of products on. Any assistance appreciated. Alex
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JBGlobalSEO1 -
How to rank my website in Google UK?
Hi guys, I own a London based rubbish removal company, but don't have enough jobs. I know for sure that some of my competitors get most of their jobs trough Google searches. I also have a website, but don't receive calls from it at all. Can you please tell me how to rank my website on keywords like: "rubbish removal london", "waste clearance london", "junk collection london" and other similar keywords? I know that for person like me (without much experience in online marketing) will be difficult task to optimize the website, but at least - I need some advices from where to start. I'm also thinking to hire an SEO but not sure where to find a trusted company. Most importantly I have no idea how much should pay to expect good results? What is too much and what is too low? I will appreciate all advices.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gorubbishgo0 -
Have a Robots.txt Issue
I have a robots.txt file error that is causing me loads of headaches and is making my website fall off the SE grid. on MOZ and other sites its saying that I blocked all websites from finding it. Could it be as simple as I created a new website and forgot to re-create a robots.txt file for the new site or it was trying to find the old one? I just created a new one. Google's website still shows in the search console that there are severe health issues found in the property and that it is the robots.txt is blocking important pages. Does this take time to refresh? Is there something I'm missing that someone here in the MOZ community could help me with?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | primemediaconsultants0 -
Are these URL hashtags an SEO issue?
Hi guys - I'm looking at a website which uses hashtags to reveal the relevant content So there's page intro text which stays the same... then you can click a button and the text below that changes So this is www.blablabla.com/packages is the main page - and www.blablabla.com/packages#firstpackage reveals first package text on this page - www.blablabla.com/packages#secondpackage reveals second package text on this same page - and so on. What's the best way to deal with this? My understanding is the URLs after # will not be indexed very easily/atall by Google - what is best practice in this situation?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | McTaggart0 -
Research on building links to a website
Hi building a brand new site with no domain authority. I have created all the content and now want to start building links to the website. Mostly through guest posting, niche directories, broken link building and other whitehat methods. Anyway i was wondering if anyone has seen any good research on the way you should link to a brand new website or any site for that matter. Like in terms of % you should focus at the homepage, inner pages, anchor distribution, internal link structure, etc. A good start would be looking at successful competitors, but i wanted to see if anyone knows any studies on this. My goal is to build a link profile which meets the standards of Google and that lasts! Thanks, Mark
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Mikey0080 -
Duplicate content issue for franchising business
Hi All We are in the process of adding a franchise model to our exisitng stand alone business and as part of the package given to the franchisee will be a website with conent identical to our existing website apart from some minor details such as contact and address details. This creates a huge duplicate content issue and even if we implement a cannonical approach to this will still be unfair to the franchisee in terms of their markeitng and own SEO efforts. The url for each franchise will be unique but the content will be the same to a large extend. The nature of the service we offer (professional qualificaitons) is such that the "products" can only be described in a certain way and it will be near on in impossible to have a unique set of "product" pages for each franchisee. I hope that some of you have come across a similar problem or that some of you have suggestions or ideas for us to get round this. Kind regards Peter
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | masterpete0 -
Xml Sitemap for a large automobile website
Hello moz fellas, I need expert advice for PakWheels about xml sitemap generation. There are hundreds of thousands of pages (mostly USG) and these are increasing day by day. What is the best practice of controlling all these pages in xml format. Where can we generate sitemap.xml to submit in Google and Bing webmaster tools. Your input may help us in managing these URLs in an xml format. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | razasaeed1