Solved: Mobile Usability Issue and Googlebot blocked by ro...

MarkPacumio · ‎02-05-2021

I received an email notification from sc-noreply@google.com about mobile usability issue on my website (www.gnomesyyc.ca). When I checked the warning, it said that the following issues were found on my site:

1. Clickable elements too close together

2. Content wider than the screen

When I clicked for more information, I found out that the issues were found on just one page on my website (www.gnomesyyc.ca/services.html). I am not sure how to tackle this because (1) there is nothing to click on this page other than the hamburger menu to get to other pages in my website and the clickable items on this menu work all right when tried on a mobile device, and (2) when I open the page on mobile devices (iPhone SE, Samsung A8, and Samsung A71), the contents seems to rescale to the appropriate screen size and I don't have to scroll left-right to see the whole image/text. I tried editing the page by adding spacers between all the images and texts and asked Search Console to validate the fix but it came back with the same issues once more.

I did a live test through Search Console after receiving the same issues and it came back with a "Page is mobile friendly" result so now I am not entirely sure what Google is detecting. The live test also says "Page loading issues" - Googlebot blocked by robots.txt

Sitemap: https://www.gnomesyyc.ca/sitemap.xml

User-agent: NerdyBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: *
Disallow: /ajax/
Disallow: /apps/

I am pretty clueless what to do next and worried that this might affect traffic to my website.

MarkPacumio · ‎02-13-2021

Just an update.

This issue on my website got fixed. I asked GSC to revalidate the page but before doing so, I did a live test and submitted a feedback to them with a screenshot of the live test result showing that the page is mobile user friendly.

View Best Answer >

NJRFTF · ‎02-05-2021

@MarkPacumio Well, for me all of the pages seem to open and operate perfectly via Galaxy Z Flip 5G and Samsung S8 using Chrome and Firefox. If it were my site I would be happy with it!! 🙂

MarkPacumio · ‎02-06-2021

Thanks for checking!

seicolegwr · ‎02-06-2021

@MarkPacumio

I don't think you have anything to worry about.

I've had these messages from Google on one of my sites, despite the whole site displaying OK on multiple devices / OS / browsers etc. If your site displays to your satisfaction I'd ignore it.

The Nerdybot disallow applies automatically to all Weebly sites. It has no effect on search rankings with the major search engines. The Ajax and Apps disallows are commonly found for websites generally. It keeps the search engines out of a site's backend where they have no reason to crawl. The 'User-agent: *' line allows all search engines to crawl any pages that you haven't chosen to hide from search engines (i.e., those blocked by robots.txt).

Assuming you've followed best practice SEO you should be fine for generating traffic.

Hope this helps, Gary

MarkPacumio · ‎02-06-2021

@seicolegwr Thanks for responding! I am pretty new to SEO. I remember read somewhere that mobility issues do affect traffic. Is this true? I sent a feedback to google search console regarding this so hopefully it gets fixed.

whitemonkey · ‎02-07-2021

@MarkPacumio @seicolegwr @NJRFTF

I also had CLICKABLE ELEMENTS TOO CLOSE TOGETHER

I HAD 2 words of text, linked, in one link... and a home made button in a different section, 3 sections below... ...

I just ignore these weird errors from GSC ... though did delete the linked text for my own reasons, and the 'error' was rectified..

I found that if u at any stage hid a page from search engines, GSC would turn a robits txt blocked for months after.

MarkPacumio · ‎02-13-2021

Just an update.

This issue on my website got fixed. I asked GSC to revalidate the page but before doing so, I did a live test and submitted a feedback to them with a screenshot of the live test result showing that the page is mobile user friendly.

Mobile Usability Issue and Googlebot blocked by robot.txt