Will my products be disapproved right away?

Not always. Google may detect it early while products still show, but says they'll be disapproved soon if robots.txt isn't fixed.

Google Merchant Center: Can't access product images · Images cannot be crawled because of robots.txt restriction · Page not crawlable due to robots.txt

Your robots.txt file is blocking Google

What Google's message means

Google can't fetch your product pages or images because your robots.txt file blocks Googlebot (pages) or Googlebot-Image (images).

Why it matters

Google may flag this early while products still show, but says products will be disapproved soon if robots.txt isn't fixed.

Common causes on Shopify

A custom robots.txt.liquid template added Disallow rules.
An SEO app changed crawl rules.
Images are served from a domain whose robots.txt blocks Googlebot-Image.

How to fix it

1Open yourstore.com/robots.txt and look for Disallow rules that cover /products, /cdn or your image paths, or that block Googlebot or Googlebot-Image.
2Allow both crawlers. Google's example: 'User-agent: Googlebot' and 'User-agent: Googlebot-Image', each followed by an empty 'Disallow:' line.
3Test a product page and an image URL with the URL Inspection tool in Search Console.
4Wait a couple of days. Google says the error should clear on its own once crawling works.

In Shopify: Shopify's default robots.txt allows product pages and images. If you customized robots.txt.liquid in your theme (Online Store → Themes → Edit code), check those rules first.

How to stop it coming back

Review robots.txt after installing SEO apps or editing theme code.

Common questions

Will my products be disapproved right away?: Not always. Google may detect it early while products still show, but says they'll be disapproved soon if robots.txt isn't fixed.

Official help pages

Want to catch this before Google does?

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Google's wording and requirements change from time to time; always check the help link shown next to the issue in Merchant Center. FlagClear isn't affiliated with Google and can't guarantee review outcomes or reinstatement.