Step 1: Locate the uncrawlable URL
Uncrawlable pages can affect your Dynamic Search ads in 3 ways:
- If you select
URL-Equals
as your targeting type and your URL is uncrawlable, you'll see the status 'Disapproved: Page cannot be crawled' on your dynamic ad target. - If you use page feeds and a URL in your feed is uncrawlable, you'll see the status 'Disapproved: Page cannot be crawled' on the row for that URL in the shared library.
- If you use any other targeting mechanism and a URL isn't or can't be crawled, Google Ads won’t know about it, so no error message will be displayed. If a URL that you’re attempting to target isn't getting traffic, you can troubleshoot by first targeting it through
URL-Equals
or page feeds. The URL will either get traffic or you'll get an error explaining why it isn’t getting traffic.
Step 2: Make sure that Google AdsBot can crawl the landing page
- Copy the URL and paste it in a web browser's address bar.
- Add
/robots.txt
to the end of the domain name, then press Enter. (For example, if your landing page ishttp://example.com/folder1/folder2/
, check what robots are allowed to crawl the domain by visiting the URL:http://example.com/robots.txt
.) - Look for the line
User-agent: AdsBot-Google
.- If it's not there, work with the webmaster to add it.
- If the page is blank, work with the webmaster to add a
robots.txt
file to the domain. - If
User-agent: AdsBot-Google
is there, make sure that it isn't followed by a line that saysDisallow: /
. Also make sure AdsBot-Google isn't restricted by another line in the file. Aboutrobots.txt
files and Google crawlers
- If the landing page is a subdomain, check if the subdomain has a separate
robots.txt
file. For example,https://subdomain.domain.com/robots.txt
. Make sure that thisrobots.txt
also allowsUser-agent: AdsBot-Google
. - Open the source of the URL. In Chrome, you can do this by opening
view-source:THE_URL
. For example, if your landing page ishttp://example.com/folder1/folder2/
, you can check what robots are allowed to crawl the domain by navigating toview-source:http://example.com/folder1/folder2/
.) - Look for the string '
AdsBot-Google
'- If it’s not there, this isn't the source of the issue.
- If the string is within a tag like
<meta name="AdsBot-Google" content="noindex" />
, work with your webmaster to remove it. Learn more about meta tags that Google understands
Other reasons that a landing page can't be crawled
If the Google AdsBot is allowed to crawl the landing page (User-agent: AdsBot-Google
is already included in the site's robots.txt
file), there may be another reason why the page can't be crawled:
- The landing page isn't loading. If you open the page with a web browser and see an error (for example, 404 Not Found, Site not reachable, Your session has expired), contact the site's webmaster to make sure that the landing page loads in any location, environment (mobile and desktop) or browser.
- The landing page requires sign-in. All ad landing pages must be publicly accessible. Use another landing page or work with the webmaster to remove the sign-in requirement from the page.
- The landing page has too many forwards or redirects. Landing pages must have fewer than 10 redirects. Work with webmaster to reduce the number of redirects. Learn more about web forwarding