Possible issues

This section contains solutions to common problems in the “Possible issues” category that are detected during website troubleshooting in Yandex.Webmaster. Issues in this category may affect the quality and speed of site indexing.

Tip. Configure notifications about the results of site monitoring.

Robots.txt file not found

The indexing robot requests the robots.txt file several times a day and updates information about it in its database. It the robot cannot load the file, a warning appears in Yandex.Webmaster.

In the service, check the availability of the robots.txt file. If the file is still unavailable, add it. If you can't do this yourself, contact your hosting provider or domain name registrar. After the file is added, the data in Yandex.Webmaster will be updated within a few days.

Errors were detected in the robots.txt file

Check the robots.txt file of your site. To fix errors, see the directive descriptions.

No Sitemap files are currently used by the indexing bot

The Sitemap file it is an auxiliary tool for indexing a site. It allows you to regularly inform the robot about new pages on the site. This warning appears if the robot is not using any Sitemap files for the site.

For the robot to start using the created file, add it to Yandex.Webmaster and wait for the robot to process the file. This can take up to two weeks. After that, the warning will disappear.

Errors found in Sitemap files

Check the Sitemap file of your site. The check may detect the error “Unknown tag”. This means that the file contains elements that are not supported by Yandex. The unsupported elements are ignored by the robot during Sitemap processing, but data from supported elements is still taken into account. You don't have to change the contents of the file. Learn more about supported Sitemap elements.

The title element and the description metatag are missing

The title element and description metatag are used for generating a good site description in search results. For more information, see Displaying the site title and description in search results.

If either or both of these elements are missing from your website, add them to the HTML code of the pages and save the changes. If the elements have already been added, wait for the robot to recrawl the pages. The error message will disappear after reindexing. Learn more

Pages have the same titles and descriptions

This problem appears if the title or description is duplicated on many pages of the website. The title element and the description meta tag should be informative and appealing and reflect the page content. This will help users find the search results they are looking for.

See examples of pages with duplicate titles or descriptions that Yandex.Webmaster found while the robot crawled the website. To fix them, follow the recommendations for:

The problem will stop being displayed when the robot learns about changes on the website. To make this happen faster, send the most important pages to be reindexed or configure page crawling with a Yandex.Metrica tag.

The favicon file is not accessible to the robot

If this issue is displayed for your site, it means the favicon is not appearing in search results. In Yandex.Webmaster, go to the Troubleshooting → Site diagnostics page (Possible problems block) and find the reason why the robot couldn't load the file, then follow the instructions:


Error	Solution
The file responds with an HTTP code other than 200 OK	Check the server response. The response should be 200 OK. For other response statuses, see Server response check.
The file redirects to another URL
Incorrect data type	Check the value of the type parameter in the file URL. It should match the file format.


Error	Solution
The file responds with an HTTP code other than 200 OK	Check the server response. The response should be 200 OK. For other response statuses, see Server response check.
The file redirects to another URL
Incorrect data type	Check the value of the type parameter in the file URL. It should match the file format.

How do I install a favicon?

Tell us what your question is about so we can direct you to the right specialist:

Check out the recommendations. If the file is available to the robot and can be downloaded in Yandex.Webmaster, but the issue still appears, fill out the form:

Feedback

See the recommendations above. If the file was added more than 2 weeks ago, but the message doesn't disappear, fill out the form:

See the recommendations above. If there are no errors in the file, but the message still appears, fill out the form:

See the recommendations above. If the server response matches 200 OK and the value of the type parameter matches the file format, but the message doesn't disappear, fill out the form: