Ecommerce Marketing

Sparkle_Rock_Po · ‎08-17-2018

Hi there,

I have received a handful of "valid but warning" notifications from my Google Search Consul. These 5 warnings are all "Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt" issues.

I'm not a techy or code person at all and no longer have a web person to help me. When I read the learn more section about this stuff its like reading a foreign language.

Anyways... through my research, it appears everyone recommends that you edit the robot.txt file (whatever that is) but then I discovered that you can't do this if you have a Shopify site...

So what I'm wondering.. do these warnings even matter? What concerns me is that they involve important pages (or at least what I would describe as important)?

ex. https://sparklerockpop.com/cart

https://sparklerockpop.com/comments

https://sparklerockpop.com/account

https://sparklerockpop.com/account/login

Appreciate any feedback on this. Thanks in advance!

Evan21 · ‎08-21-2018

Hi there,

My name is Evan, I’m a Guru here with Shopify.

It's always best to err on the side of caution when you get those messages, so it' was good that you asked! In this case, you actually have nothing to worry about. Occasionally Google will send out email warnings just like this, that sound like there is an issue. But it's actually supposed to happen!

Pages are intentionally blocked by the robot.txt to protect your SEO. You'll notice that one of the pages that's blocked is the cart. You wouldn't want Google giving a link to a customer that takes them to an empty cart! We actually have some more information on the Robots.txt here.

While you can't edit the Txt. file it's a good idea to know what it contains! So it's forth taking a look just so you know. It's also good to know incase you want to hide something else, for example down the line maybe you get a WholeSale section and don't want that easily reached.

To hide pages from search engines:

Click the Actions menu, then click Edit code.
Click the theme.liquid layout file.

To exclude the search template, paste the following code in the <head> section:

{% if template contains 'search' %}
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
{% endif %}

To exclude a specific page, paste the following code in the <head> section:

{% if handle contains 'page-handle-you-want-to-exclude' %}
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
{% endif %}

Then be should be sure to replace page-handle-you-want-to-exclude with the correct page handle.

5. Click Save!

While we're on the topic of SEO and business. How is your business doing, do you have any additional SEO marketing goals, or do you need a hand with any other SEO material? If you have any other questions or concerns, please don't hesitate to let me know! I'll be more than happy to help!

Evan | Shopify Guru

To learn more visit the Shopify Help Center or the Community Blog.

KaiaLondon · ‎06-13-2019

HI Evan,

I have just been reading through this feed as I have received two e-mails from Google Search Console saying that my 'search' page on my website has been 'Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt'. Am I correct in assuming that this is not a problem, and that I can just leave it as I don't want this page showing up on search engines?

Thanks in advance!

Sophie

Hello_There · ‎01-14-2020

I'd also like confirmation from someone that this is a non-issue.

The first Shopify response above says it isn't a problem, but then documents a solution...

neil_richards · ‎08-01-2022

Is this still the right solution to this problem?

I am readying that you put the following code:

{% if template contains 'cart' %}
<meta name="robots" content="noindex">
{% endif %}

Just before the </head> tag in theme.liquid

keepcalmhugadog · ‎03-20-2023

Hope this helps someone. I just noticed that the product pages that are being blocked according to Search Console are those that haven't had Google enabled for them. Go to "Sales channels and apps" in the right side panel under "Product Status," turn on Google and then validate the fix.

Nevets318 · ‎03-21-2023

Not sure I follow you here. In each product I see Product status on the right-hand side and under that I see "Sales Channels and Apps, but when I click "Manage" this only shows "Online Store" (Which is checked). Can you elaborate some more?

chrismlong63 · ‎01-17-2020

Hey Sparkle_Rock

I work with a good amount of Shopify sites so I should be able to help. Short answer: It's not a huge deal and there's not much you can change it. Google is somehow finding those URLs but you cannot adjust the robots.txt.

Overall, I'd ignore that message and focus on other things that are going to improve your SEO such as improving content quality.

SPC · ‎11-28-2020

Hello there, I certainly take your point about not wanting Google to index search, cart page etc. However I have got this issue with the two blogs I have written to date and integrated a few key phrases into.

Dont understand why these pages are blocked - is anyone able to advise?

Thank you in advance

Hannibal007 · ‎09-07-2021

I met the problems like you that my blog page was blocked and some of my posts were blocked, I still don't know how to let google to index my blogs

Ecommerce Marketing

Indexed, though blocked by robots.txt - - ? Big Deal?

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