Pinboard mobile theme is not loading
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Google tested the page and says that the googlebot is being blocked by robots.txt. How did this happen and how can I remove the obstruction? I cannot find the code to try to remove the block.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Hello postgutenberg,
I was curious of your issue so I pulled up your site on my Galaxy S8+ and the mobile adaptation of the theme seems to have loaded without issue for me.
If you are still having an issue with robots.txt here is a support doc you may want to check out.
https://en.support.wordpress.com/search-engines/ -
Thanks for this kind reply, pedalingpin!
Before I found your note I discovered — belatedly — that a helper here called pathfinder(?) had advised someone else on this problem last year. He gave the user directions to Mobile in Appearances (a big surprise, as Traffic under Settings seemed to be the place to fiddle with the mobile setup) and asked the user to disable the mobile option to get the page to load on mobile devices. I found that mine was preset to do that, so I enabled the mobile option.
Now my home page comes up without its red custom header — only visible on desk/laptops — and in a sickly pale blue like Facebook’s. The preset said NO to the question of whether the custom header should be disabled for mobile devices. When I set it to YES (the opposite of what I need) my site’s title reappeared but without the colour for which I pay a subscription already.
Also, there are hideous ads where my pictures should be — under the hideous AMP redesign of my home screen/first post in the mobile version — and accessing any post now requires the user to click every time.
Why not warn the user — or at least send a polite notification that the mobile version of a site will be subjected to deliberate uglification unless the user buys a service upgrade? Send the warning followed by a grace period, to let the user adjust? … This coercion is not consistent with the WP I have known and loved since about 2009.
The instructions that are precisely the opposite of what actually restores responsiveness can make the user feel like Alice in Wonderland turned into a patient in a locked mental ward.
Thanks again for your reply. I will work on the Google problem next on their console.
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When someone lands on your site on mobile from Google, Google will serve up the AMP version of your website in order to make it load more quickly. You can read more about AMP here: https://en.support.wordpress.com/amp-accelerated-mobile-pages/
You can turn off AMP in your site following the instructions in that guide, but be aware that Google is now rolling out “mobile-first” indexing. https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2018/03/rolling-out-mobile-first-indexing.html
Let us know if you have any other question about this.
Since Pinboard is now a retired theme, you may wish to consider switching to one of WordPressdotcom’s newer themes, which are responsive and adapts its width to any device. https://wordpress.com/themes
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Thanks, JustJennifer …
I’ll have to think about what I want to do after reading those links.
It’s more complicated than someone landing on a mobile from Google, because that isn’t the route I’ve been using in my tests.
I also don’t understand why the AMP version automatically comes with ads.
I’ll post my follow-up questions soon … Thank you again.
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Hello again, what route are you using in your tests?
If you have a paid upgrade that removes ads and your site is not a part of the WordAds network, please take a screenshot of what you are seeing on mobile. Thanks. https://en.support.wordpress.com/make-a-screenshot/
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Hello JustJennifer, thanks for your clear answers …
Further mysteries. A popup keeps asking me to ‘complete your purchase,’ as it has done for several weeks — but it’s clear from my billing history that I don’t own WP for my site’s customised design or anything else. But if your system has a bug and thinks I didn’t pay my bill, could this explain why — starting from my 10 April post, about the YouTube shooter’s videos being demonetised for not being ‘advertiser-friendly’ — Pinboard abruptly stopped adjusting to its mobile version?
Suddenly, only my custom header began to appear on mobile devices — with a blank page where the text and illustrations were supposed to be. … Fiddling with the settings did no more than give me the unappetising AMP version and a blog stuffed with advertisements, for the very first time. If my customised design doesn’t protect me from ads, why didn’t this happen before?
You say that Pinboard is retired but in my account information there is a promise that the theme ‘never expires’.
I am willing to try monetising my site, but not by being pressured into accepting advertisements. Can people who monetise their sites choose where the ads go? I certainly don’t want them right under my header or near the top of any post.
Finally, the timing of the breakdown of responsiveness seems rather fishy. Why had I never had such a problem before the post about the sudden requirement by YouTube, not WP, of ‘advertiser friendliness’?
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Hello again, I’ve tagged this thread for staff regarding your billing question. As a volunteer I do not have access to such information.
Regarding your retired premium theme, you can continue to use it as long as you like but if you switch away you may not be able to switch back. Also having a premium theme does not prevent ads from displaying. Only an upgrade plan does.
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Hi there,
A popup keeps asking me to ‘complete your purchase,’ as it has done for several weeks — but it’s clear from my billing history that I don’t own WP for my site’s customised design or anything else
You are seeing that message because you have a Custom Design upgrade added to your site’s cart on the checkout page:
https://wordpress.com/checkout/post-gutenberg.com
Remove that item from the cart, and that message will go away. Your existing Custom Design upgrade only expires in August, and the automatic renewal should be processed towards the end of July.
But if your system has a bug and thinks I didn’t pay my bill, could this explain why — starting from my 10 April post, about the YouTube shooter’s videos being demonetised for not being ‘advertiser-friendly’ — Pinboard abruptly stopped adjusting to its mobile version?
No upgrade on your site can have any effect on the mobile responsiveness of the site whatsoever. That’s something that’s built into your theme, and the only way to override it is by adding non-responsive custom CSS in the Customizer.
It does appear that your site might be affected by a known issue where some ads displayed on the site are preventing it from loading correctly. I’ve made an adjustment to your site on our end and it should work now, but we are still working on finding and fixing the root cause of the problem.
Fiddling with the settings did no more than give me the unappetising AMP version and a blog stuffed with advertisements, for the very first time. If my customised design doesn’t protect me from ads, why didn’t this happen before?
You are most likely seeing your site while logged out at that point. You don’t own a plan or a legacy No Ads upgrade, so we have always been displaying ads on your site to logged out visitors. We generally don’t show them while you’re logged in, though, so you may not have seen them before.
You say that Pinboard is retired but in my account information there is a promise that the theme ‘never expires’.
The theme never expiring means it doesn’t have to be renewed each year like other WordPress.com upgrades. That does not mean the theme will work for ever.
The coding languages in which websites are written are constantly evolving and the features we offer constantly change, and all themes reach a point where it’s not feasible any more to continue updating the theme to support the newest features. Pinboard was retired in September last year, so is no longer being updated.
You can keep using it, but it will stop working completely over time, and if you switch away from it to another theme, you won’t be able to reactivate it, as @justjennifer indicated above.
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A very big thank you, JustJennifer and Kokkieh. These are surpassingly comprehensive answers. I have too much to do at present to take in all the information, but am saving it to study over the 24 hours, after which I will return if there’s anything that still needs clarifying … or simply to thank you both again.
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@Kokkieh and @JustJennifer,
This is my first chance in a chaotic week for clear thinking about Kokkieh’s reply — admirably comprehensive, because it covered all the points I raised, but it does not address the particular problems. Misunderstanding is the likely culprit.
POSSIBLE EXPLANATION FOR FAILURE OF MOBILE RESPONSIVENESS
No upgrade on your site can have any effect on the mobile responsiveness of the site whatsoever. That’s something that’s built into your theme, and the only way to override it is by adding non-responsive custom CSS in the Customizer.
It does appear that your site might be affected by a known issue where some ads displayed on the site are preventing it from loading correctly.
I didn’t say that the upgrade affected mobile responsiveness, but was wondering whether your WP billing popup’s mistaken impression that I owed WP money could have led your system to block some of my features/services (for instance, responsiveness). … In the absence of an automated explanation for the change in responsiveness — from your system — I was doing my best to speculate about possible causes.
ADVERTISING THAT WAS BLOCKED WITHOUT A NO ADS UPGRADE
It does appear that your site might be affected by a known issue where some ads displayed on the site are preventing it from loading correctly.
… AND …
You don’t own a plan or a legacy No Ads upgrade, so we have always been displaying ads on your site to logged out visitors. We generally don’t show them while you’re logged in, though, so you may not have seen them before.
About advertisements on the mobile version of the site. Starting with your last sentence in my second quotation, it is impossible that I ‘may not have seen them before’. This is because I have never been logged in while checking the mobile version of my site, for at least a year. For security reasons — and to help me isolate problems in troubleshooting — I have deliberately refrained from connecting my chief mobile device to WP Admin.
So your answer might be correct for other users, but could not apply in my case. This suggests that something other than the ‘known issue’ related to advertisements was interfering with the loading of my site on mobile phones. Its effect was that the custom header, fonts, and custom background colour all loaded correctly — but without any text or pictures. … In other words, something in your system appears to have severed the connection between the features of my custom design and the content of my posts.
The only answer I can think of to the question of why there were either very few or no ads on my site — other than beneath the text of each post, from time to time — is that a few years ago, I complained about ugly ads interfering with the ‘look and feel’ of my site. I believe that the kind Happiness Engineer assisting me at the time saw my point and could have done something to block advertisements.
Some sites with a more generic look, and in which the imagery is relatively unimportant, can accommodate advertisements easily. Mine is virtually destroyed by them. Thank you so much for the adjustment you made to the mobile version while the bug you mentioned is being eliminated.
So, to summarise: until my 10 April post about the YouTube shooter, the mobile version of my site was loading normally on mobile devices — in my visits to the site on those devices, while logged out of WP Admin. I would like that responsiveness restored, please.
THE AMP VERSION OF THE MOBILE DESIGN
@JustJennifer said:You can turn off AMP in your site following the instructions in that guide, but be aware that Google is now rolling out “mobile-first” indexing. https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2018/03/rolling-out-mobile-first-indexing.html
When I went to the AMP options page in Settings/Traffic, I found that my theme does not even allow me to restore just my site’s custom colours — red and cream — in its AMP version.
Also, by following that interesting Googleblog link you sent me about ‘mobile-first’ indexing, I saw that although Google will be favouring mobile versions of sites in its indexing, it is going to prefer non-AMP responsiveness to AMP versions.
Given that my non-AMP version with its colours and fonts, etc., was perfectly responsive on 9 April, could you please restore the settings on that date? … I would do the job myself, if I only knew how.
ROBOTS.TXT
@PedalingPanda — the first person to help me on this forum in this round of troubleshooting — gave me a link for digging into what seems to have gone wrong with the updating of my site in search engines. The answer from the Google Console — in a test of ‘mobile-friendliness’ — is that a ‘user agent’ is blocking search engine crawlers from indexing the site.I have tried to find the page with the line of code blocking access but with no success. @Kokkieh and @JustJennifer, please would you look into this and make the necessary change — or send me idiot-proof instructions for helping myself?
Looking forward to your replies —
pG
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Hello, I have been trying to post my reply, several attempts … but it is being blocked by something …
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Because of the multiple replies, you got caught in our forum spam filter. I’ve fished you out and will remove the duplicate/triplicate replies. Thanks for your patience while someone gets back to you.
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Ah, thank you so much for doing that, @JustJennifer. I see that you found all four parts of my reply — broken up to try to get past the filter — and stitched them back together.
Because @Kokkieh didn’t know exactly what the problems are — because I was trying to keep my earlier messages short — it seemed a good idea to give him more information. But that turned out to be bad idea, at least from the filter’s point of view …
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So, to summarise: until my 10 April post about the YouTube shooter, the mobile version of my site was loading normally on mobile devices — in my visits to the site on those devices, while logged out of WP Admin. I would like that responsiveness restored, please.
Your site is loading fine for me on mobile, though I see now it has the mobile theme active under Appearance ->Mobile in the WP-Admin dashboard:
https://postgutenberg.wordpress.com/wp-admin/themes.php?page=mobile-options
That theme is intended for if you’re using a theme that is not already responsive. If you enabled that when your site wouldn’t load, as the theme is not the cause of that you can just disable the mobile theme and the site should work exactly as before.
The answer from the Google Console — in a test of ‘mobile-friendliness’ — is that a ‘user agent’ is blocking search engine crawlers from indexing the site.
Looking at your site’s logs, you have been setting a large number of posts and pages to private and back again. If you set a post or page to private, search engines cannot index it, and checking that particular link in search console (or if that link had been indexed previously) would give an error.
And after changing the privacy settings on your site, or individual post or pages, it can take several weeks for Google to re-index the affected content before an error such as that will go away.
I see nothing in your site’s current settings that could be blocking search engines from accessing it.
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Glad I refreshed because I see that @kokkieh has already responded here, so I’ve edited my below reply for brevity: (ha!)
Regarding AMP/Mobile:
AMP makes your site look like it did (in my opinion) on an early 2000’s feature phone. It’s fast loading and that is what Google serves up on mobile from their search results for your site. I seem to remember that if anyone clicks through from a link on Twitter on mobile, the AMP version loads as well.
When looking at your site on my 3 mobile devices I see:
iPad mini/Safari: full site including the red header, depending on orientation one or two content columns
Android tablet/Chrome: same as iPad
Android phone/Chrome: I see the mobile version of your site. If I navigate to the bottom of that front page I can click a link to View Full Site. If I do, I see the full site including the red header. I have a Galaxy S4 and can only see one content column regardless of orientation.To disable the mobile version of your website, navigate to WP Admin>Appearance>Mobile by adding /wp-admin/themes.php?page=mobile-options to your site URL where you’ll see something like:
Mobile Theme
Awesome! Your theme, XXX, is already deemed to be mobile-friendly.
Enable mobile theme Yes Noand make sure that No is selected if the theme is deemed mobile friendly. Save your changes if you made any.
FWIW-I do not see any ads while on mobile, both on the front page and in single post view, and I am not currently logged in to WordPressdotcom on any of my mobile device.
Robots.txt/Privacy:
On WordPressdotcom you have three choices on how you can configure your robots.txt and that has to do with the Privacy setting you chose for your site:
-Public
-Hidden
-PrivateRegardless, the User Agent, i.e. search engine, is blocked on all our sites from crawling things like your WP Admin dashboard. You can see your site’s full robots.txt by adding /robots.txt to your site URL. I compared your site’s robots.txt to my site’s and they are the same regarding Allow/Disallow If you want to learn more about robots.txt, https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6062608?hl=en
@kokkieh has explained about changing privacy settings on individual posts and pages and how that affects search engines.So, to make a long story short, with the exception of the mobile theme seemingly enabled on your site, I also don’t see anything odd at this point.
Hope that helps.
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Howdy –
After having a read through this thread it seems like everything is working as it should. postgutenberg, please get back to me here if that’s not the case.
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Hello! I have followed instructions and the mobile version of the site is working beautifully again. Please don’t close my case until I have a chnce to tackle the other problems — in 24-48 hours. Many thanks!
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