Google Search Console has begun sending out a brand new warning to webmasters who are blocking CSS and JavaScript on their websites.
The new warning, also referred to as [WNC-658001] is send by both email and as an alert in Google Search Console for affected websites.
Googlebot cannot access CSS and JS files on _____
Google systems have recently detected an issue with your homepage that affects how well our algorithms render and index your content. Specifically, Googlebot cannot access your JavaScript and/or CSS files because of restrictions in your robots.txt file. These files help Google understand that your website works properly so blocking access to these assets can result in suboptimal rankings.
Here is a copy of the notice in Google Search Console.
The warning also states emphatically that blocking Javascript and/or CSS “can result in suboptimal rankings.” While Google has been making it known that they must be unblocked as part of the mobile friendly algo, they did also make the changes to the Google technical guidelines advising that it can hurt all rankings last year.
If you need to know which resources are blocked, here is how to find them.
The blocked resources also show up in the “Blocked Resources” section under “Google Index” in Google Search Console. However, Michael Gray tweeted that he was getting the notice for resources that were not blocked.
The message also outlines details of how to fix the issue, likely to help those who have no idea what it means to block those resources and do not realize it is causing an issue.
Google has been increasing the number of messages they send to webmasters, alerting them to site issues that could negatively impact their rankings.
I have asked to see if there is information on how many webmasters received this warning, and will update if more becomes known.
Added: It looks like many are getting warnings from having “Disallow: /wp-content/plugins/” which can be blocked with some WordPress setups. If you use Yoast SEO, you can find the robots.txt in its new location here: SEO / Tools / Files.
Some are getting alerts for 3rd party resources that are blocked, however, Google has previously said 3rd party resources are not an issue since webmasters since they are generally outside of the webmaster’s control.
You can also follow us @Jenstar and @TheSEMPost as we most more updates.
Update 12:30pm PST: Some people weren’t aware there is a much easier way to find blocked resources than the “Fetch as Google” option for every page that Google suggests doing. Do double check, as some people who are reporting false positives actually discover they did have some resources blocked that they weren’t aware of. How to Find Blocked CSS & Javascript in Google Search Console.
Jennifer Slegg
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Kim says
So annoying.
I’ve got /wp-admin disallowed, and it’s trying to find two or three resources from there (one for a popular posts plugin, and one for wordfence).
Who’s at fault here? The plugin? Google? Robots.txt? Having /wp-admin blocked is pretty standard practice!
gabriel says
From what I’m seeing it has to do with “wp-includes/js/wp-emoji-release.min.js?ver=4.2.3”
Jason says
I’ve received 150 of these emails this morning.
I would classify 100% of them as false positives.
Here’s what my robots.txt file reads on all the sites where I’ve received this “warning”:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Marc says
And what about this one?:
http://pagead2.googlesyndication.com/pagead/js/adsbygoogle.js Script Blocked
Also mentioned in the report, I quess I can’t change that, or am I missing something?
Will says
Hmmm, WHo here is using wordfence, they may be blocking access to these resources?
Casey says
Hey Will, we are using Wordfence, but we only received notices for a couple of sites, when we have multiple sites using it, so I am thinking that it would have been across all sites it that were the problem.
Cata says
I received 5 in the last hour. What should i do? It is true or false?
Mike Good says
Sorry for my ignorance but I didn’t see anything that says if we should adhere and whether there are other negative repercussions of not doing it?
Matt says
What a crook of garbage. I’m disallowing /wp-admin/ and /wp-includes/ (by default) and I got this warning on 10 of my sites. Google should hire a new team for technical issues.
Jeff Tincher says
i was wondering what the heck was going on!!! thanks for this insightful article and help.
I found that there was js unable be accessed in /wp-includes/js/
so i made robots.txt as such:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Allow: /wp-includes/js/
see if that helps for a few clients.
allowing robots to see js seems like BS to me 😉
Matt Ryan says
Hey Jeff,
Seeing the same thing over here. Made a similar change to satisfy the g-bots.
Like I have nothing better to do today than to dance for Google !
C’ya
Matt
Leland McFarland says
A lot of people are saying that they are getting emails even though the only directory that they blocked is /wp-admin/, but if Google somehow knows there is a JS or CSS file in that directory and tries to index it, Google will be blocked by robots.txt. Google does not care if the file is in a directory that you do not want them to go into, they only care that they are being blocked from a JS or CSS file.