Google robots.txt test - not picking up syntax errors?
-
I just ran a robots.txt file through "Google robots.txt Tester" as there was some unusual syntax in the file that didn't make any sense to me...
e.g. /url/?*
/url/?
/url/*and so on. I would use ? and not ? for example and what is ? for! - etc.
Yet "Google robots.txt Tester" did not highlight the issues...
I then fed the sitemap through http://www.searchenginepromotionhelp.com/m/robots-text-tester/robots-checker.php and that tool actually picked up my concerns.
Can anybody explain why Google didn't - or perhaps it isn't supposed to pick up such errors?
Thanks, Luke
-
Many thanks Beau - much appreciated.
-
Hey Luke,
It appears that in each of the three examples, there was a plausible case for each example. Let's cover each:
- For /url/?* , it can be expressed that a URL can offer a trailing slash and then a query string, see examples here.
- with /url/? , this covers examples of the above and in addition, would plausibly block product pages that generate query strings, similar to this example from H&M. In essence, only allowing the product page to be seen.
- /url/* , well, that's just anything and everything after the trailing slash.
I guess the question you should ask yourself is "Is this the best approach for the issue?"
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
-
Google related searches
Hello, Are the related searches, the words that I should use when writing my content. For ex : when I type online spreadsheet in google, in the related searches it list online spreadsheet open source and spreasheet download. Does it means that when writing content I should included those terms in order to be relevant on the keyword online spreadsheet ? because they are considered closely related by google ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | seoanalytics0 -
Crawl Test Question
Good Morning, I am just looking for a little bit of advice, I ran a crawl report on our website www.swiftcomm.co.uk. I have resolved most of the issues myself, however I have two questions;- Screenshot image http://imgur.com/VlFEiZ2 Highlighted blue, we have two homepages www.swiftcomm.co.uk and www.swiftcomm.co.uk/ both are set with a Rel-Canonical Target of www.swiftcomm.co.uk/. Will this cause me any SEO issues and or other potential issue? If this may cause an issue how would I go about resolving? Highlighted yellow, Our contact and referral-form are showing as duplicate title and meta description. Both of these pages have separate title and meta desc which it does seem to be detecting. If I search the page in google it returns the correct title and meta desc. The only common denominator behind these pages is that both have php pages behind them for the contact form. Do you think that the moz crawl may be detecting the php page over the html? Could this be cause any issues when search engines crawl the site? Kind Regards Jonathan Mack VlFEiZ2
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | JMack9860 -
Google Penalty Checker Tool
What is the best tool to check for the google penalty, What penalty hit the website. ?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Michael.Leonard0 -
Homepage not ranking in Google AU, but ranking in Google UK?
Hey everyone, My homepage has not been ranking for it's primary keyword in Google Australia for many months now. Yesterday when I was using a UK Proxy and searching via Google UK I found my homepage/primary keyword ranked on page 8 in the UK. Now in Australia my website ranks on page 6 but it's for other pages on my website (and it always changes from different page to page). Previously my page was popping up at the bottom of page 1 and page 2. I've been trying many things and waiting weeks to see if it had any impact for over 4 months but I'm pretty lost for ideas now. Especially after what I saw yesterday in Google UK. I'd be very grateful if someone has had the same experience of suggestions and what I should try doing. I did a small audit on my page and because the site is focused on one product and features the primary keyword I took steps to try and fix the issue. I did the following: I noticed the developer had added H1 tags to many places on the homepage so I removed them all to make sure I wasn't getting an over optimization penalty. Cleaned up some of my links because I was not sure if this was the issue (I've never had a warning within Google webmaster tools) Changed the title tags/h tags on secondary pages not to feature the primary keyword as much Made some pages 'noindex' to try and see if this would take away the emphases on the secondary pages Resubmitted by XML sitemaps to Google Just recently claimed a local listings place in Google (still need to verify) and fixed up citations of my address/phone numbers etc (However it's not a local business - sells Australia wide) Added some new backlinks from AU sites (only a handful though) The only other option I can think of is to replace the name of the product on secondary pages to a different appreciation to make sure that the keyword isn't featured there. Some other notes on the site: When site do a 'site:url' search my homepage comes up at the top The site sometimes ranked for a secondary keyword on the front page in specific locations in Australia (but goes to a localised City page). I've noindexed these as a test to see if something with localisation is messing it around. I do have links from AU but I do have links from .com and wherever else. Any tips, advice, would be fantastic. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | AdaptDigital0 -
Google+ Pages on Google SERP
Do you think that a Google+ Page (not profile) could appear on the Google SERP as a Rich Snippet Author? Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | overalia0 -
How accurate and quick does Google pick up on canonical tags?
Hey Peeps! I was just wondering what your experiences are in how fast Google will pick up on canonical tags and how often they use the 'strong hint' in stead of leaving it be? I'm based in The Netherlands and for websites with a decent amount of content and links (where Google indexes new content quickly) they pick up on it within 1-2 weeks. So far they've ignored some canonical tags on one of my websites. Perhaps that's because they don't agree with the degree in which the pages are similar. Thanks in advance!
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | StevenvanVessum0 -
Could you use a robots.txt file to disalow a duplicate content page from being crawled?
A website has duplicate content pages to make it easier for users to find the information from a couple spots in the site navigation. Site owner would like to keep it this way without hurting SEO. I've thought of using the robots.txt file to disallow search engines from crawling one of the pages. Would you think this is a workable/acceptable solution?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | gregelwell0 -
Remove www. in google webmaster
Hi. My baseball blog (mopupduty.com) shows up as www.mopupduty.com in Google Webmaster tools. This is an issue for me, as my Wordpress plug-in sitemap will only show up on http://mopupduty.com/sitemap.xml , not the www. version Is there any way in changing the www. in webmaster tools without deleting my existing index. The website currently has sitelinks in search results, and I'm not too keen in giving them up via deletion. Thanks
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | mkoster0