How to Fix ‘Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt’ in Google Search Console
If you've been monitoring your website's progress in Google Search Console and noticed the message "Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt," don't panic! This is a common error that can easily be fixed. In this article, we'll show you how to solve this problem so that your website can be properly indexed by Google.
What is the Indexing Issue?
If you've ever checked your Google Search Console and seen the message "Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt," you may be wondering what it means.
Basically, it means that Google has found your website and added it to its index, but that it can't access all of the content because it's being blocked by your robots.txt file.
This can happen for a number of reasons. Maybe you accidentally blocked Google from accessing your website when you were setting up your robots.txt file. Or, maybe you've since changed your website and forgot to update your robots.txt file accordingly.
Either way, the solution is relatively simple: just update your robots.txt file and make sure that it doesn't block any important pages on your website. Once you do that, Google will be able to access and index all of your content, and you'll no longer see the "indexed, though blocked by robots.txt" message in your Search Console.
How to Fix the Indexing Issue
If you're having issues with your website being indexed in Google, it's possible that your site is being blocked by robots.txt. In order to fix this, you'll need to make sure that your robots.txt file is configured correctly.
There are a few things that you'll need to check in your robots.txt file:
• Make sure that your file is located in the root directory of your website.
• Check that the file is named correctly – it should be called "robots.txt".
• Ensure that the file has the correct syntax. You can find more information about this on the Google Developers website.
• Once you've made these changes, resubmit your website to Google for indexing.
What is robots.txt?
Robots.txt is a file that webmasters can use to instruct robots (typically search engine crawlers) what pages on their website can or cannot be accessed. This is done by specifying a rule in the robots.txt file that blocks access to a particular page or group of pages. When a search engine robot encounters a blocked page, it will generally log the error in its system.
If you're seeing "Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt" in your Google Search Console, it means that your website is being indexed by Google, but that there are some pages on your site that are being blocked by your robots.txt file. This is usually not a cause for concern, as long as the majority of your website's content is still accessible to Google.
There are a few reasons why you might want to block certain pages on your website from being indexed:
- You may have duplicate content on your site, and you only want Google to index one version of the page.
- The page may be under construction and you don't want Google to index it until it's finished.
- The page may contain sensitive information that you don't want publicly available.
If you're not sure why a particular page on your site is being blocked by robots.txt, you can check the Google Search Console for more information.
How to Use robots.txt to Block Google from Indexing Your Site
If you're trying to keep your website private, or if you want to prevent certain pages from being indexed by Google, you can use the robots.txt file to block Google's crawlers. The robots.txt file is a simple text file that tells Google (and other search engines) which pages on your site they should and shouldn't index.
To block Google from indexing your entire site, simply add the following line to your robots.txt file:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
This tells Google not to index any pages on your site. If you only want to block specific pages, you can list those pages after the Disallow: directive, like this:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /private-page.html
Disallow: /another-page.html
Remember to upload your robots.txt file to the root directory of your website for it to take effect.
How to Submit Your Sitemap to Google
If you're having trouble getting your sitemap indexed by Google, one potential reason could be that your robots.txt file is blocking Google's crawlers. In this case, you'll see the message "Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt" in the Coverage section of Google Search Console.
To fix this, simply add your sitemap's URL to your robots.txt file and resubmit it to Google. You can find instructions on how to do this here: https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/183668?hl=en&ref_topic=4581190
Once you've done this, Google should start indexing your sitemap within a few days.
Conclusion
If you're seeing the 'Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt' error in your Google Search Console, it means that your site is being indexed by Google but that some of your pages are being blocked by your robots.txt file. This can happen if you accidentally block a page or if your robots.txt file is incorrectly configured. In either case, the fix is relatively simple: just edit your robots.txt file and remove the blocks on the affected pages.
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