Problems With Google Webmaster! Please help!
So, I've come across a problem that I can't seem to figure out on my own. You know, the kind of problem you try forever to fix yourself but finally throw your hands up and say "I need help!".
Well, here it is. About a week ago I received this email from the Google Search Console Team:
So, that being said I went to my Webmaster search console to see what was up and follow the directions given in the email. Here's what I found:
The "www.kirbysmarketing.com" thumbnail is the most up to date version of my site. The "kirbysmarketing.com" thumbnail has not been updated since my last post a couple weeks ago.
Now, following the steps in the email, I "fetch as google". And this is what I get:
And when I click on the row to see the details I get this:
I don't know anything about code so I don't even know what to look for in terms of mistakes. If you need the code to help me figure this out I'll pm it all to you. Please let me know.
Anyways, I submitted to index multiple times in the last week. And it hasn't made any sort of difference,
Ok, to me it seemed like this all went fine and as usual. I think there might be something in the code causing the problem, but I don't even know what to look for.
Anyways, I assumed this worked fine so I continued with step 2 of the email, which was to update my robots.txt file. First I tested it and got these results:
So, everything seems to be fine with this. Just to make sure I checked out All-In-One SEO to make sure the robots.txt matches up, and it does. Here it is from All-In-One in my WP dashboard:
Because everything seemed to be fine and lining up between the two, I submitted the new (nothing changed from before) robots.txt to Google, but when I rerun the tester multiple days later, it still says the robots.txt file is from Wednesday, July 29 (one day after I received the first email from Google.
I really am stuck and have no idea what to do. My traffic has been next to nothing, as you can see from this graph of my traffic over the last two weeks:
I have had three visitors from Google since July 29, the rest is all direct or referral traffic. So, obviously something is wrong.
Please help!
Here is some other information. I have not installed any new plugins in the last month. I don't even think I have even updated any plugins in the last two weeks. So, I don't think that has had anything to do with this (although it may have, I don't know).
Please let me know if there is any other information you need to help me figure this out. Any help would be GREATLY appreciated. I am really stuck and have no idea what to do to get my rankings back in Google.
I have no idea what I'm looking for in the CSS or Javascript code on my site. So, if that is where the problem is I REALLY need help.
If you made it this far and have any advice or things I can do, or just know what I need to do, please, please, please let me know!
Thanks again,
Dustin
P.S. Here are the resources Webmaster is blocking:
Recent Comments
17
Hi Dustin,
I'm restarting my learning with WA.Reading your post, I'm getting curious and apprehensive about the Google Webmaster problem you are in. So wondering how's your progress in solution-finding?
Cheng
Why do you have two versions of your website in WMT?
Have you tried changing themes? The guys below seemed to think it was the robots file, which sounded legit to me, but I'm just trying to spitball some ideas here. If it's a free theme, maybe it hasn't been updated for a while and is messing you up.
Have you thought about hiring someone on upwork.com to figure this out? Obviously we will try to help you here, but it may cost you about $20-$30 to have someone look at it and fix it for you.
Hey Nathaniell, thanks for having a look.
I'm using a premium theme from MyThemeShop. It's updated regularly and I've never had a problem with anything before. I'll have a look. I've also put in a support ticket with them, but they didn't see anything wrong.
Another thing I'm thinking is maybe I'm just being too impatient and not giving Google enough time to let everything propagate and be reflected in webmaster. In the blocked resources it says the date is from 7/25, so really out of date.
I think right now I'm gonna let it sit for a few days and see if anything changes. According to everything I've read, which is a lot, I've got everything as it should.... So hopefully Google is just taking its sweet time.
In the meantime, I'm gonna work on my email marketing for a bit.
Hello DustinG. If after you have tried the suggestion from DordPete and are still having problems you can submit a support ticket. kholmes has written how to do this. I coped and pasted the link for you.kholmes How To Submit A Support Ticket To Tech Support
Hey. Thank you. I have already submitted one, but just wanted to post it here to increase my chances of somebody seeing it who might know what's going on. Haha...
Not my area of expertise But I am having problems with webmaster tools. Hope you get this sorted soon
Haha... Yeah. Webmaster tools has always been that thing I've kinda done the bare minimum with because I don't really know how to use it too well.
Oh it is a bit above me perhaps try once of the more experienced members like Marion, KatKatskitchen or even Nathaniel the list goes on gosh we have some great members, not seen you in awhile hope all goes well and you manage to resolve this
Working on it. I think I may have a solution above, but will try when I get back home from work. Thanks!
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Hi Dustin,
I think you need to remove Disallow: /wp-includes/ from your robots.txt file.
The wp-includes contains your js and css files, so this should solve the problem.
Hey. Thank you. I will try this when I get home from work and let you know.
Yeah, from all I have read on this that is the issue that is resulting in this. This Disallow is not by default something that is added to Robots.txt on an install, this is initiated by either a plugin or a theme.
If you update your Robots.text and remove this it should fix the issue Dustin.
Hey, I've tried that and all sorts of robots.txt variations, nothing is working. I find it funny that WordPress SEO plugin includes /wp-includes/ by default, it's even in the robots.txt training videos on their site, so I don't think it was added by a different plugin.
Regardless of the robots.txt files I've tried, there are still numerous "blocked resources" indicated by Webmaster (see in image). All of my fetch and render by Google attempts have been without issue with my current robots.txt and the robots.txt tester indicates no problems with anything, yet those resources are still blocked.
Any other ideas?
Hi Dustin,
Well, I don't know what could be causing this.
Did you also try removing WP-admin from the robots.txt?
I have read that it could be a plugin, notably Wordfence, if you're running that.
Apart from that I have no idea.