Google Feedfetcher being blocked?

**LissaKay** · October 18th, 2007, 5:47 PM

My RSS 2.0 feed stopped being updated in Google Reader and NewsGator about two weeks ago.

I have checked and double checked my htaccess and robots.txt files ... nothing in either of them has changed in the last two weeks, nor is there anything in there that could be blocking Google.

My feed validates. Every other reader out there picks it up and updates it.

You can subscribe to the feed, and all the current posts will show up. But when I update the site, Google Reader does not post the new content.

Every other feed reader is picking up my feed and updates appropriately. It's only Google Reader, and also NewsGator (but who the heck uses that?)

I have been trying to get Google to fix whatever is wrong on their end. They just say that it is my fault ... invalid feed, being blocked, etc. I showed them snips of my server logs showing their crawler retrieving the feed with response codes of either 200 or 304. Now they are saying that they are being blocked at the server level.

So ... here we are. I got no love on the MT4/Phpsuexec issue. Can I get some direction on this, perhaps?

My feed URL is
http://www.lissakay.com/index.php/weblog/rss_2.0

Quote:

The user-agents listed in the webmaster tools only
indicate the configuration of your robots.txt file. Robots.txt does not
apply to the Feedfetcher, since feeds are crawled based on direct requests
from users. Therefore it is likely that this is being blocked at your
server level.

The IP addresses used by Feedfetcher change from time to time. The best
way to identify and allow accesses by Feedfetcher is to use its
identifiable user-agent: Feedfetcher-Google.

For your reference, the response that Feedfetcher is getting from your
site is simply a set of headers with no actual content or error message.
For example:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Date: Thu, 18 Oct 2007 18:28:59 GMT
Server: WebServerX
Connection: Keep-Alive, Keep-Alive
Keep-Alive: timeout=15, max=99
Expires: Wed, 17 Oct 2007 21:15:14 GMT
Cache-Control: no-store, no-cache, must-revalidate, post-check=0,
pre-check=0
Vary: Accept-Encoding

Sincerely,
The Google Team

Help?

**LissaKay** · October 18th, 2007, 8:57 PM

I wrote in reply to their email:

Quote:

I have gone over all my server logs for the past two weeks, since this
first
started happening. I see server response codes 200 and 304. My Atom feed
has been picked up. Other feeds that I have are being picked up. It is
just
this one that is not.

ALL other feed aggregators are updating ... it's just you.

I can re-create the feed with a different URL, and it gets picked up.
Once.
Updates are NOT being picked up.

I have gone over my htaccess and robots files and there is nothing in
either
one of them that could be blocking Feedfetcher.

My feed validates perfectly. There is no issue there. Again, all other
feed
readers are picking up and posting my updates.

I am still waiting on a real answer here ... and I am posting this to the
forums that support both my hosting and the software I use to run my site
and feed.

Their response:

Quote:

You are correct that Feedfetcher is getting a "200 OK" response from your
server, as shown in the headers we sent in our last message. However,
those headers represent the entirety of the response we received from your
server. The actual content of the requested feed was missing.
Unfortunately, there is nothing more we can do from the Google Reader side
of things if we are unable to receive content from a feed we are trying to
crawl. We suggest that you take this issue up with the tech support of
your hosting company. We apologize for the inconvenience.

Sincerely,
The Google Team

I am getting quite perturbed by this ... WTF is the problem here?

**LissaKay** · October 20th, 2007, 3:56 AM

Is this another one of those magical invisible threads? Like my other one? Or am I on ignore?

Hello?

Bueller?

H · October 20th, 2007, 4:56 AM

You might want to take this to support... I'm not sure this is a user-solvable problem as any change would more than likely of been made by support/tech.

**LissaKay** · October 22nd, 2007, 6:35 PM

I submitted ticket VBL-894170 on this issue. The response is that there is no blocking of Google or its crawler, they added Feedfetcher specifically to my htaccess to allow the crawler. The feed is valid, all other readers are picking it up. Google officially sucks.

Patty · October 23rd, 2007, 1:31 AM

Check with support about mod_security or IP blocking. I 've had a problem with googlebot not indexing my site for about 3 months until I finally realized it was something on the server and spoke to support. It turned out they had disabled something on the server that was preventing googlebot from indexing my site. The result: it went from 500 to 8 hits a day, and my Google Ad Sense from US$ 35 a month to U$ 1 a week. It's almost 4 months now and I still didn't recover from it...

**LissaKay** · November 1st, 2007, 2:51 PM

Patty, would you happen to still have your support ticket number from when you had this issue? It's going on 3 weeks and I still have no resolution. Thanks!

(And why are the update notifications from the forum hit or miss? I always click on the link to visit the thread, and I am logged in, but I very often do not get the email notification, or it arrives many hours or even days later)

**LissaKay** · November 8th, 2007, 5:46 PM

Still no resolution. Google still blaming "something on the server"
Surpass tech support says nothing is blocking Google.

No one has addressed the issue of the incorrect Http response code that is sent by the server to the Google Feedfetcher:

/index.php/weblog/rss_2.0/
Http Code: 304 Date: Nov 08 16:10:30 Http Version: HTTP/1.1 Size in Bytes: -
Referer: -
Agent: Feedfetcher-Google; (+http://www.google.com/feedfetcher.html)

And I wait and wait, growing ever more angry and frustrated ... with diminishing hope for a resolution, strongly considering kicking the whole lot to the curb ...

**LissaKay** · November 9th, 2007, 3:02 PM

*tap tap tap*

Is this thing on?

October 20th, 2007, 3:56 AM	#3 (permalink)
LissaKay Bringing Sexy Back Seasoned Poster Joined in May 2006 Lives in Knoxville, TN Hosted on SH130 95 posts Gave thanks: 0 Thanked 5 times	Is this another one of those magical invisible threads? Like my other one? Or am I on ignore? Hello? Bueller? __________________ LissaKay.com is on SH130

October 22nd, 2007, 6:35 PM	#5 (permalink)
LissaKay Bringing Sexy Back Seasoned Poster Joined in May 2006 Lives in Knoxville, TN Hosted on SH130 95 posts Gave thanks: 0 Thanked 5 times	I submitted ticket VBL-894170 on this issue. The response is that there is no blocking of Google or its crawler, they added Feedfetcher specifically to my htaccess to allow the crawler. The feed is valid, all other readers are picking it up. Google officially sucks. __________________ LissaKay.com is on SH130

October 23rd, 2007, 1:31 AM	#6 (permalink)
Patty Registered User Excelling Contributor Joined in Feb 2005 542 posts Gave thanks: 87 Thanked 24 times	Check with support about mod_security or IP blocking. I 've had a problem with googlebot not indexing my site for about 3 months until I finally realized it was something on the server and spoke to support. It turned out they had disabled something on the server that was preventing googlebot from indexing my site. The result: it went from 500 to 8 hits a day, and my Google Ad Sense from US$ 35 a month to U$ 1 a week. It's almost 4 months now and I still didn't recover from it... __________________ Patty Pass 57 \| Dime999 \| SH 110

November 1st, 2007, 2:51 PM	#7 (permalink)
LissaKay Bringing Sexy Back Seasoned Poster Joined in May 2006 Lives in Knoxville, TN Hosted on SH130 95 posts Gave thanks: 0 Thanked 5 times	Patty, would you happen to still have your support ticket number from when you had this issue? It's going on 3 weeks and I still have no resolution. Thanks! (And why are the update notifications from the forum hit or miss? I always click on the link to visit the thread, and I am logged in, but I very often do not get the email notification, or it arrives many hours or even days later) __________________ LissaKay.com is on SH130

November 8th, 2007, 5:46 PM	#8 (permalink)
LissaKay Bringing Sexy Back Seasoned Poster Joined in May 2006 Lives in Knoxville, TN Hosted on SH130 95 posts Gave thanks: 0 Thanked 5 times	Still no resolution. Google still blaming "something on the server" Surpass tech support says nothing is blocking Google. No one has addressed the issue of the incorrect Http response code that is sent by the server to the Google Feedfetcher: /index.php/weblog/rss_2.0/ Http Code: 304 Date: Nov 08 16:10:30 Http Version: HTTP/1.1 Size in Bytes: - Referer: - Agent: Feedfetcher-Google; (+http://www.google.com/feedfetcher.html) And I wait and wait, growing ever more angry and frustrated ... with diminishing hope for a resolution, strongly considering kicking the whole lot to the curb ... __________________ LissaKay.com is on SH130

October 20th, 2007, 4:56 AM	#4 (permalink)
H after g, before i Resident. Joined in Jul 2004 Lives in N,BC,CA 8,085 posts Gave thanks: 48 Thanked 131 times	You might want to take this to support... I'm not sure this is a user-solvable problem as any change would more than likely of been made by support/tech.

November 9th, 2007, 3:02 PM	#9 (permalink)
LissaKay Bringing Sexy Back Seasoned Poster Joined in May 2006 Lives in Knoxville, TN Hosted on SH130 95 posts Gave thanks: 0 Thanked 5 times	tap tap tap Is this thing on? __________________ LissaKay.com is on SH130

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