Description tag not showing in the SERPs because page is blocked by Robots, but the page isn't blocked. Any help?
-
While checking some SERP results for a few pages of a site this morning I noticed that some pages were returning this message instead of a description tag,
A description for this result is not avaliable because of this site's robot.s.txt
The odd thing is the page isn't blocked in the Robots.txt. The page is using Yoast SEO Plugin to populate meta data though.
Anyone else had this happen and have a fix?
-
I am having the same issue currently with one of my clients sites. No robots.txt is or was ever in place. I can not find any issues at all that would cause the problem. Was wondering if you every had any resolution to this? Client also uses Yoast.
-
Hi there! Has this issue been resolved? We'd love to have an update, thanks! (Christy)
-
Could the pages have been blocked in robotos.txt in the past? It can take an age for Google to re-index pages a proper after having been blocked previously.
-
Certainly doesn't appear to be any issues there. It's difficult to determine the issue without taking a look closer but its not the robots.txt file and if your site is fully indexed then I can't offer more without seeing the site.
Would you be willing to share the URL?
-
No, it's not on. The site is indexed, just certain description tags aren't.
-
It's pretty standard
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
-
I've seen people with similar issues before and it's been a small but fatal error in the robots.txt file itself. Can you please share it here and I'll advise further if needed.
-
Can you check something for me please?
Log in to wp-admin
Go to Setting then Privacy
Check if “Ask search engines not to index this site.” is set to ON
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
-
Title Tags for Index Pages
What tactics do you use to change the title tags of your index page so they're not all the same? For example, if you have an index page that has 100 pages, each with the same title, what tactics do you use to give each page a unique title and how important is it?
On-Page Optimization | | felt0 -
The actual title tag is different from the one showing in SEOmoz
Hello all I was looking at the crawling report for my project, I have noticed that there are so many duplicate titles in the "Duplicate Page Title" report, I checked the title tag for one of the titles (for this page) manually (in the page code), and it was showing like this: <title></span><span>Interviews | TechSparks</span><span></title> where it's showing in the "Duplicate Page Title" report like this: Interviews | TechSparksEasyRotator Preview Hovering over the tab in the browser shows the title as I mentioned first, and searching Google for this page shows the title like the first one I mentioned too. Do you any clue why that is happening? fUbtXe6 fUbtXe6.png
On-Page Optimization | | MHD0 -
Would removing high dynamic pages though nofollow help or hurt?
We have a sub-domain that is hosted by a third party. These pages are highly dynamic (change daily or more often) as they are product search results. Unfortunately they are raising several errors and warnings including duplicate page content, title missing or empty, long URLs, overly dynamic URL Would putting nofollows on the links to this sub-domain help, hurt or not affect page rank? As an example: Links in the middle of this page (prices) http://targetvacations.ca go to a page such as this http://travel.targetvacations.ca/cgi-bin/resultadv.cgi?id=16294922&code_ag=tgv&alias=tgv which is then redirected to a dynamic URL and presents the results.
On-Page Optimization | | TSDigital0 -
Would I be safe canonicalizing comments pages on the first page?
We are building comment pages for an article site that live on a separate URL from the article (I know this is not ideal, but it is necessary). Each comments page will have a summary of the article at the top. Would I be safe using the first page of comments as the canonical URL for all subsequent comment pages? Or could I get away with using the actual article page as the canonical URL for all comment pages?
On-Page Optimization | | BostonWright0 -
Finding unique title tags for each media coverage page
We have multiple pages for our media coverage, and each page has the same title tag. I know it's important to have unique title tags, but if each page is just a listing of your media coverage (page 1 of 9, page 2 of 9, etc) then how do you create unique title tags for each media coverage page?
On-Page Optimization | | msakakibara0 -
Duplicate Page Content and Duplicate Page Title
Hi All, I'm new in SEOMoz and have some questions after I have already spend 2-3 days trying to resolve the problems identified from Crawling one of my clients websites. I get quite a lot of Duplicate Page Conntent and Page Titles warnings and trying to find a workaround through the forums and posts. I continuously get this error on most of my pages: URL: http://domain.com/benefits with the same Page but with a WWW in front URL: http://www.domain.com/benefits Any advice will be highly appreciated. Thanks, Athos
On-Page Optimization | | athosk0 -
Should H1s be used in the logo? If they are and it is dynamic on each page to relate to the page content, is this detrimental to the site rather than having it in the page content?
On some sites, the H1 is contained within the logo and remains consistent throughout the site (i.e. the company name is in the of the logo). If the h1 in a logo is dynamic for each page (i.e. on the homepage it is company name - homepage) is this better or worse to have it changed out on the logo rather than having it in the page content?
On-Page Optimization | | CabbageTree0 -
SEO Value of Within-Page Links vs. Separate Pages
Title says it all. Assuming that you're talking about similar content (let's say, widgets), which is better: using within-page links for variations or using separate pages? I.e., do we have a widget page and then do in-page links to describe green, blue, and red widgets, or separate pages for each type of widget? In-page pro: more content on a single page, thus more keywords, key phrases, and general appearance of real content. In-page con: Jakob Neilsen says they're confusing. Also, for SEO, you only get one page title, rather than a separate page title for each. My personal bias is for in-page, since I hate creating dozens of short pages for what could be on one page, but my suspicion is that separate pages are better for SEO.
On-Page Optimization | | maxkennerly0