How do I investigate a blocked-by-robots error in Wix?

Definition: A “Blocked by robots.txt” error reports a crawl restriction: a rule prevents a search engine from fetching a page. Investigating it in Wix starts with the page's indexing and access settings, which can affect Wix's generated robots.txt file.

Key facts

• As of 17 October 2026, Wix's robots.txt editing guide directs owners seeing this error to check indexing settings, password protection, and members-only access.
• Wix's site indexing guide identifies a site-wide switch named Let search engines index your site.
• Wix's page indexing guide states that disabling indexing for the entire site disables the individual-page and page-group indexing controls.
• Google's URL Inspection documentation separates Crawl allowed?, which concerns robots.txt, from Indexing allowed?, which concerns instructions excluding a page from the index.

Which indexing settings need checking?

Indexing is the process of adding a page to a search engine's index. For a page intended for public search, the investigation covers the scope of each Wix control:

• Entire site: Wix's site indexing instructions locate Let search engines index your site under the SEO Dashboard's Tools and settings, then Go to SEO Settings.
• Page type: Wix's SEO Settings guide locates these settings under SEO & GEO, Tools and settings, then SEO Settings. Selecting a page type and editing Basics & social share exposes Let search engines index your page(s). This switch applies to that page type, such as Products.
• Individual page: Wix's page indexing instructions give the Wix Editor path Pages & Menu, the page's More Actions menu, then SEO basics. The relevant switch is Let search engines index this page.

Can membership or a password explain the restriction?

Wix's password-protection guide states that password protection prevents crawling and indexing. In the Wix Editor, the page's Settings, Access tab contains Password holders. An intentional password restriction explains why public search access is unavailable.

Wix's members-only guide places Site Members in the same Access tab. Access can cover all signed-in members or specific members selected by role or pricing-plan subscription. The guide also says that Site collaborators access is enabled by default, so an owner's successful visit alone is an insufficient access check.

The distinction between private and public member pages matters. Wix's page indexing documentation says private member pages are excluded from crawling and indexing, while public member pages such as Followers and Profile require manual indexing exclusion when that is the intended outcome.

How are changes checked on the live site?

Wix's robots.txt guide gives this example address for viewing the generated file:

https://www.mystunningwebsite.com/robots.txt

The actual site's root domain replaces the example domain. The same guide says page changes update robots.txt after publication; site-setting changes update it immediately. Search engines refresh their cached copy on a subsequent crawl.

Google's URL Inspection guide provides Test live URL to check the current page. Crawl allowed? reports robots.txt access, while Page fetch reports whether Google actually retrieves the page. The indexed report reflects the last crawl, so its result can differ from the live test after a change.

Related terms

• How do I edit robots.txt in Wix?
• How do I reset Wix's robots.txt file?
• How do I prevent indexing of one Wix page?
• robots.txt

FAQ

Should I edit robots.txt immediately?

Wix's troubleshooting instructions direct you to check page settings first, especially if you have never edited robots.txt. Password protection and members-only access may be intentional.

Why does “Indexing allowed?” say “Yes” on a blocked page?

Google's URL Inspection documentation says that when robots.txt blocks a page, this field always shows “Yes” because Google cannot read its indexing-exclusion instructions. Check Crawl allowed? alongside it.

Sources

1. Wix, “Editing Your Site’s Robots.txt File”, accessed 17 October 2026
2. Wix, “Preventing Search Engines from Indexing Your Site”, accessed 17 October 2026
3. Wix, “Preventing Search Engines from Indexing Your Page”, accessed 17 October 2026
4. Wix, “Customizing Your SEO Settings”, accessed 17 October 2026
5. Wix, “Wix Editor: Password Protecting a Specific Page of Your Site”, accessed 17 October 2026
6. Wix, “Wix Editor: Creating Members Only Pages”, accessed 17 October 2026
7. Google, “URL Inspection Tool”, accessed 17 October 2026

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