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    4. What's wrong with this robots.txt

    What's wrong with this robots.txt

    Technical SEO Issues
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    • Leonie-Kramer
      Leonie-Kramer last edited by

      if i test the blocked url's they are blocked so it looks like the file is doing what's supposed to do. but still is strange i got these errors.

      @Dean Andrews, thanx i will test it without empty lines, though have to wait for another deployment 😉

      BlueprintMarketing 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • BlueprintMarketing
        BlueprintMarketing @Leonie-Kramer last edited by

        if you want to find out anything that could possibly be wrong with that this tool is the holy grail of finding out what's wrong with robots.txt issues in my opinion just expect a lot more info than a simple response from it.

        http://tools.seochat.com/tools/robots-txt-validator/

        Sincerely,

        Thomas

        DeanAndrews Leonie-Kramer 2 Replies Last reply Reply Quote 3
        • DeanAndrews
          DeanAndrews @BlueprintMarketing last edited by

          Thomas,

          That's an awesome tool, thank you for sharing.

          BlueprintMarketing 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
          • Leonie-Kramer
            Leonie-Kramer @BlueprintMarketing last edited by

            Thanx for the url: it gives a warning on

            Disallow: /product/
            and
            Disallow: /media/bcc.xml

            i wonder why?

            BlueprintMarketing 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
            • BlueprintMarketing
              BlueprintMarketing @DeanAndrews last edited by

              Hi Dean happy to be of help!

              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
              • BlueprintMarketing
                BlueprintMarketing @Leonie-Kramer last edited by

                Hi Leonie,

                I believe that you should create a robots.txt file that allows for a user agent disallow a folder /media/ and /.xml file. make the Unwanted xml file a 410 it will be dead to Google. however I think I have come up with a solution below please try pasting that in if it does not work.

                A another tool for building robots.txt files and comparing them to the existing file from the same company believe it or not is right here.

                http://www.internetmarketingninjas.com/seo-tools/robots-txt-generator/

                please note you are disallowing more than just media you are disallowing something that should  be more like this is for the xml sitemap why not just set it to a 410 killing the link in Google's eyes then you will not have to  Disallow.

                User-agent: *
                Disallow: /product/
                Disallow: /media/
                Disallow: /bcc.xml

                Sitemap: http://example.com/sitemap_index.xml

                putting your new site map in where I have placed a site map or where the rule above will give you the spot to put it will help you tell Google where your new site map resides along with of course submitting it to Google Webmaster tools and fetching it as a Google bot.

                I would like to look at the architecture of your site if you're getting errors with what you showed me you can send me a private message and I promise I will respond if you are not comfortable showing the URL on Q&A.

                I hope this is of help,

                Thomas

                Leonie-Kramer 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                • BlueprintMarketing
                  BlueprintMarketing last edited by

                  By the way here is an outdated site map that has when it looks like errors that really is telling me the protocol for putting a site map inside a robots.txt file is not endorsed by Google or Bing however I  truly feel it is helpful so I do it. I've also added extra video site maps from an external host which is what's throwing out the errors the red color of the disallows is not a error it is just letting you know they are being blocked. Hopefully this will be of help

                  bigger photo is right here as well please give me a look at what errors are getting

                  http://i.imgur.com/Xg7EXwO.png

                  http status: 200

                  Syntax check robots.txt on http://www.blueprintmarketing.com/robots.txt (359 bytes)

                  | Line | Severity | Code |
                  | 6 | Warning | The official standard does not include Sitemap support even though major crawlers (Google and Bing) support it. It is still nonstandard. |
                  | 7 | Warning | The official standard does not include Sitemap support even though major crawlers (Google and Bing) support it. It is still nonstandard. |
                  | 8 | Warning | The official standard does not include Sitemap support even though major crawlers (Google and Bing) support it. It is still nonstandard. |
                  | 9 | Warning | The official standard does not include Sitemap support even though major crawlers (Google and Bing) support it. It is still nonstandard. |
                  | 10 | Warning | The official standard does not include Sitemap support even though major crawlers (Google and Bing) support it. It is still nonstandard. |

                  Warnings Detected: 5

                  Errors Detected: 0

                  robots.txt source code for http://

                  | Line | Code |
                  | <a name="line-1"></a>1 | User-agent: * |
                  | <a name="line-2"></a>2 | Disallow: /wp-content/plugins/ |
                  | <a name="line-3"></a>3 | Disallow: /wp-admin/ |
                  | <a name="line-4"></a>4 | Disallow: /wp-includes/ |
                  | <a name="line-5"></a>5 |   |
                  | <a name="line-6"></a>6 | Sitemap: http://www.blueprintmarketing.com/sitemap_index.xml |
                  | <a name="line-7"></a>7 | Sitemap: http://app.wistia.com/sitemaps/11323.xml |
                  | <a name="line-8"></a>8 | Sitemap: http://app.wistia.com/sitemaps/4339.xml |
                  | <a name="line-9"></a>9 | Sitemap: http://app.wistia.com/sitemaps/14213.xml |
                  | <a name="line-10"></a>10 | Sitemap: http://app.wistia.com/sitemaps/23283.xml |

                  Xg7EXwO.png

                  1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                  • Leonie-Kramer
                    Leonie-Kramer @BlueprintMarketing last edited by

                    Hi, Thanx for your reply, i'm not sure i understand you by "please note you are disallowing more than just media"

                    the thing with this is the xml file is an old file but somewhere in the google archive. i tried do remove it with the wmt, but returns. It's  not on the server anymore. the directory "media" doesn't exist anymore, also from an old website.

                    Because the file still returns in wmt i thought let's try it with the robots.txt

                    new robots.txt not tested waiting for deployment 😉

                    Oh call me stupid, but how do i make a 410?

                    Grtz, Leonie

                    BlueprintMarketing 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                    • Leonie-Kramer
                      Leonie-Kramer last edited by

                      Hi ,

                      i got it working with a proper sitemap. Special thanks to Thomas for the great effort in his answers!

                      BlueprintMarketing 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                      • BlueprintMarketing
                        BlueprintMarketing @Leonie-Kramer last edited by

                        Hi Leonie,

                        That's very kind of you I am very happy that you got it working correctly.

                        All the best,

                        Thomas

                        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                        • BlueprintMarketing
                          BlueprintMarketing @Leonie-Kramer last edited by

                          Believe me it took me plenty of time to realize how to do this but if you're handy with SFTP or SSH you can change the

                          http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1975904/htaccess-to-redirect-all-traffic-to-one-page-410-gone?rq=1

                          And for the ultimate in ease if you're using WordPress there is actually a plug-in for 410s so it wasn't something anyone found easy to do.

                          https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-410/

                          Sincerely,

                          Thomas

                          Leonie-Kramer 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
                          • Leonie-Kramer
                            Leonie-Kramer @BlueprintMarketing last edited by

                            Ah thanks, it's an Azure platform, so no SFTP, SSH or .htaccess. but i'll give the stack link to the technical guys then they have to translate it to our environment  ( .net)

                            BlueprintMarketing 1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 1
                            • BlueprintMarketing
                              BlueprintMarketing @Leonie-Kramer last edited by

                              I think thats a great Idea .net is not my thing.

                              All the best!

                              Tom

                              1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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