Troubleshooting Robots.txt Issues with Google Search Console

To troubleshoot robots.txt issues in Google Search Console, particularly the "Blocked by robots.txt" error, follow these key steps:

1. Identify the error in Google Search Console:

   • Log in to Google Search Console.
   • Navigate to Indexing > Pages.
   • Scroll to the Why pages aren’t indexed section.
   • Click on Blocked by robots.txt to see which URLs are affected.

2. Understand the cause:

   • The error usually means your robots.txt file contains a Disallow directive blocking Googlebot from crawling certain URLs.
   • Common causes include:
     • Incorrect or overly broad Disallow rules blocking important pages or directories.
     • Legacy or outdated rules no longer relevant.
     • Manual syntax errors (e.g., missing slashes).
     • SEO plugins or tools automatically generating restrictive rules without your knowledge.

3. Use tools to diagnose:

   • Use Google Search Console’s robots.txt Tester to check if specific URLs are blocked.
   • Access your robots.txt file directly by visiting yourdomain.com/robots.txt to review its contents.
   • Look for lines like:

     User-agent: *
     Disallow: /
     

     which block all crawling.

4. Decide if the pages should be indexed:

   • If the blocked pages should be indexed, remove or modify the Disallow directives in robots.txt that block those URLs.
   • If the pages are intentionally blocked and should not be indexed, you may leave the robots.txt as is.
   • Note: Blocking crawling via robots.txt does not guarantee exclusion from Google’s index if other pages link to those URLs. To fully prevent indexing, use a noindex meta tag or HTTP header in addition to robots.txt blocking.

5. Fix the robots.txt file:

   • Edit the robots.txt file to remove or adjust Disallow rules that block important content.
   • Correct any syntax errors.
   • If using SEO plugins, check their settings to ensure they are not adding unwanted rules.
   • After updating, re-upload the file to your server.

6. Request re-crawling:

   • After fixing robots.txt, use Google Search Console’s URL Inspection Tool to request re-crawling of affected URLs.
   • Monitor the status in the Page Indexing report to confirm the issue is resolved.

7. When to ignore the error:

   • If the blocked URLs are intentionally excluded from crawling and indexing, the error can be safely ignored.
   • Google will continue to respect the robots.txt directives and not index those pages.

Following these steps will help you effectively diagnose and resolve robots.txt-related indexing issues reported in Google Search Console.