Fixing crawl errors in Google Search Console (GSC) is crucial for SEO. Crawl errors prevent Googlebot from accessing or indexing your site properly, which can hurt your rankings. Here’s a step-by-step guide to identifying and fixing them:
Step 1: Log into Google Search Console
Go to https://search.google.com/search-console and select your website property.
Step 2: Check Crawl Errors
Go to:
Index > Pages (Previously: “Coverage” report)
There you’ll see:
Errors (pages Google couldn’t crawl)
Valid with warnings
Valid
Excluded
Focus on the Errors and Excluded sections.
⚙️ Step 3: Understand the Error Types and Fixes
1. 404 Error (Not Found)
Means the page doesn’t exist.
Fixes:
If it should exist: Recreate or restore the page.
If not needed: 301 redirect it to a relevant page or leave it (Google will eventually drop it).
Update internal/external links pointing to this page.
2. Server Errors (5xx)
Googlebot tried to reach your server but failed.
Fixes:
Check your hosting/server status.
Ensure the site isn’t overloaded or down.
Contact your host if needed.
Check your robots.txt isn’t blocking too much.
3. Redirect Errors
Broken or infinite redirect loops.
Fixes:
Avoid chains of redirects (A ➝ B ➝ C).
Check for circular redirects.
Use tools like Screaming Frog or httpstatus.io to debug.
4. Blocked by robots.txt
Page is blocked from crawling.
Fixes:
Go to robots.txt Tester in GSC
Unblock URLs you want indexed
Use Disallow: rules carefully
5. Submitted URL marked ‘noindex’
You’re submitting a page to index but it’s set to noindex.
Fixes:
Remove noindex tag from the page if you want it indexed
Or remove it from your sitemap
Step 4: Fix the URLs on your site
Update broken links (internal & external)
Clean up outdated sitemap links
Set proper canonical URLs
Step 5: Validate the Fix
Once you’ve fixed the issue:
- Go back to the error in Google Search Console
- Click “Validate Fix”
- Google will re-crawl the affected pages
Bonus Tools to Help:
Screaming Frog SEO Spider (desktop app)
Ahrefs Site Audit
Google’s URL Inspection Tool
httpstatus.io – Check HTTP status codes
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