Advice needed…
What does this mean and what do I need to do?
Search console has identified that your site is affected by 1 new index coverage related issue. This means taht index coverage may be negatively affected in Google Search results. We encourage you to fix this issue.
New Issue found: Indexed though blocked by robots.txt.
TIA
It means that Google found a link (could be a page, form, image, etc.) that they think you want to show up in search results, but your robots.txt is prohibiting them from doing so. You’ll need to log into the Google Search Console and click on your Messages to see which URL is being flagged. Then, check your robots.txt file (you’ll need to FTP into your site - it will be at the root level) and delete the URL if it’s there. If you want the URL to be hidden from search results (there are perfectly valid reasons for doing so, such as a pop-up form that you don’t want people to stumble upon), then leave it as is in the robots file and also ensure it’s not showing up in your sitemap.xml file.
Hope this helps, Dave
Dave-
I’ll have to look at this, but I think I get the gist of what you’re saying. I believe I have a payment page that I’ve blocked in the robots.txt file, but I allowed it to be in my sitemap.xml file and I should delete it from my sitemap file?
thanks, Lisa
Correct - because you’re giving conflicting information. You’e asked it to be indexed in the sitemap file, but expressly told Google, Bing, etc., not to show it. If it’s blocked in robots, it should not also be showing up in your sitemap.
Gotcha! thanks again.
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