What should I do if I receive an error saying my site can't be crawled due to the robots.txt file when trying to index my site on Google with Webflow?

Published on

September 22, 2023

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If you receive an error saying that your site can't be crawled due to the robots.txt file when trying to index your site on Google with Webflow, there are a few steps you can take to address the issue:

Understand robots.txt:

The robots.txt file is a file that tells search engine crawlers which parts of your website they can access and which parts they can't.
It is located at the root of your website domain (e.g., www.yourdomain.com/robots.txt).
By default, Webflow generates a robots.txt file for your site that allows search engines to index your published pages.

Check your robots.txt file in Webflow:

Log in to your Webflow account and go to the Project Settings for the site in question.
Scroll down to the SEO tab and click on "editor" under "Robots.txt settings".
Ensure that the "Disallow all search engine robots" option is unchecked. This option can prevent search engines from indexing your site.
Review the content of your robots.txt file. Make sure it doesn't have any rules that would block search engine crawlers from accessing your pages.

Test your robots.txt file:

Go to Google's robots.txt testing tool (search for "Google robots.txt tester" to find the tool).
Submit the URL of your website's robots.txt file to check if there are any issues or restrictions that may prevent search engines from crawling your site.
The tool will display any errors or warnings that need to be addressed in your robots.txt file.

Update your robots.txt file:

If you find any issues or restrictions in the robots.txt tester tool, return to your Webflow project settings.
Make necessary updates to your robots.txt file in the SEO tab to ensure that it allows search engines to access and crawl your site.
Save your changes and republish your website to make the updated robots.txt file live.

Resubmit your site to Google:

After resolving any issues with your robots.txt file, you should resubmit your site to Google for indexing.
Login to Google Search Console and select the property (website) you want to index.
Go to the "URL Inspection" tool and click on "Request Indexing".
Wait for Google to recrawl your website and index its pages.

By following these steps, you should be able to fix the error related to the robots.txt file and allow search engines to properly crawl and index your site on Google with Webflow.

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