How to Find Blocked CSS & Javascript in Google Search Console

Have you received one of the new “Googlebot cannot access CSS & JS files” warnings but don’t know how to find out what has been blocked?  Some will be for third party resources which Google has previously said webmasters do not need to worry about. While there are likely some false-positives, some of those are actually issues where resources are being blocked, but the webmaster just isn’t aware of it.

But how can you find the blocked CSS and Javascript that Google believes is on your site?  There is actually a much easier way to discover the blocked resources without following Google’s longer instructions in the message sent to webmasters.

The message Google sent says you can check each page using Fetch as Google to see what resources are being blocked:

But here is an easier way to check for all the blocked resources Google has found, as of their last crawl of your pages, as well as seeing historically the issues you have had, so you can identify whether it is a long-standing or new issue.

Google has a section within Google Search Console called “Blocked Resources”.

When you go into this section, under “Google Index” it will which all the pages on the site that have blocked resources.  Click on any of the URL, and it will give you detailed about what was blocked on each page.

In this example, we clicked on the homepage URL:

Even though you have only clicked a single URL, it will also show how many other pages each of these blocked resources are blocked on other pages as well.

Many WordPress pages are showing these errors, and some setups/plugins are blocking resources without webmasters being aware of it.  So even if you think it is a false positive, double check in the “Blocked Resources” section.

As you unblock CSS and Javascript, you can submit the URL to be recrawled or simply just wait for Googlebot to do it on its own.

You can also get more information about these warnings in our article New “Googlebot cannot access CSS and JS files” in Google Search Console.

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Jennifer Slegg

Founder & Editor at The SEM Post

Jennifer Slegg is a longtime speaker and expert in search engine marketing, working in the industry for almost 20 years. When she isn't sitting at her desk writing and working, she can be found grabbing a latte at her local Starbucks or planning her next trip to Disneyland. She regularly speaks at Pubcon, SMX, State of Search, Brighton SEO and more, and has been presenting at conferences for over a decade.

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