Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt

#31602
  • Resolved Michael Martin

    4 years, 2 months ago

    Rank Math free

    Hello all,

    On GSC I have a warning on this page:

    https://www.reclaimdesign.org/shipping-policy.html

    The message is that the file is indexed though blocked by robots.txt.

    Weirdly I do not have a robots.txt file in the root directory, and have not altered any robots.txt entries.

    I wondered if another error (I can’t remember where I found this – I saved the info in a text file) might be related to this:

    WWW Canonicalization Does your site appear on more than one URL?
    How to fix
    The www and non-www versions of your URL are not redirected to the same site.

    Decide whether you want your site’s URLs to include a “www”, or if you prefer a plain domain name. There are marketing pros and cons for each choice, but neither one is better or worse for SEO purposes – as long as you’re consistent.

    You should use HTTP redirections (301 permanant redirects) to pass PageRank from the “wrong” URLs to the standard (canonical) ones. That way, your content will still benefit from backlinks if someone makes a mistake and uses the wrong URL.

    I believe it is possible to set up a redirect in RankMath? If that’s right, please could you explain how to point http://www.reclaimdesign.org to reclaimdesign.org?

    Many thanks for your help.

    Michael.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • Todd

    4 years, 2 months ago

    Rank Math free

    Hi Michael,

    Thanks for getting in touch with us.

    Your page seems to be set to noindex:
    null

    Although we do not recommend making it indexable, you can do from within Rank Math.

    null

    We have already replied to you about the WWW Canonicalization

    It cannot be done via Rank Math. You must use this code:
    https://www.siteground.com/kb/how_to_redirect_www_urls_to_nonwww/

    Hope that helps and please do not hesitate to let us know if you need our assistance with anything else.

    Michael Martin

    4 years, 2 months ago

    Rank Math free

    Hi Todd, thanks for getting back to me. I set the NoIndex in RankMath this morning. Thank you for the link to redirecting – I’ve had a look at it and it mentions needing to change the .htaccess file. Unfortuanately with my EasyWP package that is not something I am able to do. There is no .htaccess in the root folder and I asked the host namecheap if I can access it, and they said it is not possible. Is there another way or do I need to ask namecheap to sort out the www. redirect (I did write to them previously about this but wasn’t able to get an explanation that made any sense to me – I think they misunderstood what I was asking)

    Michael Davis

    4 years, 2 months ago

    Rank Math pro

    Hi Michael,

    Thanks for getting back to us.

    Unfortunately this can only be achieved by the guys from Namecheap since they control access to the .htaccess file.

    I can suggest that you reach out to them once more and check if there is package that you could upgrade to that will make it possible to modify these options.

    Let us know if you have additional questions. Thank you.

    Michael Martin

    4 years, 2 months ago

    Rank Math free

    Thank you Michael. I spent 4 hours on a live chat with Namecheap yesterday trying to sort out a 301 redirect on https://www.reclaimdesign.org to canonical url http://reclaimdesign.org, but no dice, which is demoralizing.

    Anyway, onto troubleshooting elsewhere for now I guess!

    Todd

    4 years, 2 months ago

    Rank Math free

    Hi Michael,

    If you need help with anything else, please open a new support ticket here so we can help.

    We are always here for assistance.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

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