Fix the error status on the homepage

Why it matters

Google's test saw an error answer (4xx or 5xx) from the homepage, so it may be dropped from search results. The cause is either a real fault on your server or a rule that blocks Google's crawlers.

The fix

1. Request the homepage from outside your network with curl -sI and note the status. Then request it again with a browser user agent and a Googlebot user agent and compare, since a firewall or bot protection may answer them differently.
2. Read your server and application error logs for the time of the request and fix the fault. A 5xx is usually a crashed or overloaded backend; a 403 is usually a firewall, bot protection or hotlink rule; a 404 means the homepage route or file is missing.
3. If bot protection is the cause, allow verified Googlebot (and other search crawlers you want) in its settings, then check again with the URL Inspection tool in Google Search Console.

curl -sI https://example.com/

The examples use example.com. Replace it with your own domain.

Read the documentation ↗(opens in a new tab)

Related

• Reported by the Indexability check
• Remove the noindex tag from the homepage
• Remove the noindex header from the homepage
• Let search engines crawl the homepage
• Resolve the noindex that robots.txt hides
• Find out why Google cannot index the homepage
• Remove the nofollow instruction from the homepage
• Add structured data to the homepage
• Fix the broken structured data on the homepage