Why Google Sent You That Message About Blocking JavaScript & CSS

Did you get an email from Google saying Googlebot can’t access your CSS and JS files? Well, you are not alone.

This morning, Google began sending mass messages to verified Google Search Console webmasters notifying them if GoogleBot, their search crawler, cannot access their JavaScript and/or CSS files.

It seems that many WordPress users, including other popular CMS solutions like Joomla and others, have received such notifications. Simply because the default for these CMS solutions is to block the include folder, which has CSS and JavaScript within in.

Google is notifying these webmasters because almost a year ago, Google began rendering the full page as a user would see it. In October they changed their webmaster guidelines to inform webmasters to not block include files.

The rational, if Google cannot fully see your web site, it may result in Google not fully understanding your web site, leading to “suboptimal rankings,” as Google put it.

Here is a picture of the notification that may look familiar to you:

If you received this notification, follow the instructions in the email to diagnosis the issue and/or use the fetch and render tool within the Search Console to see what Google sees and open up those assets to Google. That is – if you want Google to access them.