FAQ

Did you encounter a 403 Forbidden error while trying to access the IndexNow key location?

No need to be alarmed!

Keep reading to learn more about:

• what might be causing the 403 Forbidden error;
• what you can do about it so that you can index your website with IndexNow.

Don’t worry, it’s an easy fix, so let’s get to it!

403 Forbidden Error when Trying to Access IndexNow: Possible Reasons

The 403 Forbidden error can be caused by several reasons, but the most common is that the API key file has not been generated automatically. This issue might arise from a plugin conflict.

Lucky, resolving the 403 Forbidden error with IndexNow is straightforward and can be done by completing just a few steps.

Here’s how:

Fix the 403 Forbidden Error by Changing the API Key in Squirrly SEO

To submit URLs to the IndexNow API, you must “prove” ownership of the site for which URLs are being submitted. This requires an API key. Squirrly automatically generates an API key for your website and dynamically hosts it on your website.

Once generated, the IndexNow API Key will be displayed in the IndexNow Key field.

To change the API Key in Squirrly SEO:

• Go to: Squirrly SEO >  IndexNow > Settings > IndexNow Key. Then click on the “Reset Key” button shown below. Squirrly will then generate a new API Key for your site instantly.

Once you’ve completed this step, clear the cache and make sure that your API key is accessible to search engines. For this:

• Go to: Squirrly SEO > IndexNow > Settings > IndexNow Key URL
• Click on the yellow “Check Key” button shown in the screenshot below

Clicking on the Check Key button will open a new tab.

If the new tab displays your API key, you’re all set! You can rest assured knowing that search engines will have access to the API key to verify ownership (assuming that access to this page is not restricted via robots.txt).

With IndexNow History, we’ve made it extremely easy for you to check that your URLs are being sent to the IndexNow API so that they can be promptly indexed.  

In the IndexNow History section, Squirrly SEO displays a list of the most recent URLs that have been submitted to the IndexNow API, as well as the response code associated to each submission.

A 200 response code indicates that the submission has been successful.

To access the IndexNow History section, go to: Squirrly SEO > IndexNow > Submit URLs

What if Changing the API key from within Squirrly SEO Doesn’t Work?

In case changing the API key from within Squirrly doesn’t work for you, there’s another quick solution that’ll fix the 403 Forbidden Error.

The solution is to: manually add the text file containing the API key to the root of your website. Here’s how to do it:

1. Create a text file. The name of your text file should be: [your_api_key].txt. It’s very important that your file name contains your API key.

2. Next, add the API key to the text file. DO NOT include anything else in the file, such as additional characters, symbols or spaces.

3. Finally, upload the text file to the root of your website. For this, you can use an FTP client or cPanel’s File Manager.

In order to log onto a server using FTP, you first need to gather the necessary information:

• the FTP credentials (username and password),
• the address of the FTP server,
• and the document root director.

Once you’ve collected the necessary information, you will be able to connect to your server using an FTP client such as WinSCP (download WinSCP for free here).

Make sure that all your information is entered correctly. Then press the “Login” button to connect to your server.

Once you’ve completed this step, you can upload the text file which contains your API key. To do this:

• open the local folder on your computer, where the text file containing the API key was saved.
• open the remote site folder (the folder on your server where your site is located). Usually, it’s the “public_html” folder.

Making sure that both the local and the remote folders are open, select the text file and click on the Upload button to upload the .

The file will begin uploading right away, and once you see it in the remote site folder, you’re all done!

By following these steps, you will be able to access the IndexNow API key from its location and search engines will be able to crawl the key file to verify site ownership.

👋RELATED READING: Configure Automatic URL Submission using IndexNow >>

In case you have multiple websites on which you use Squirrly SEO, you can easily add them to the list of Connected Websites in the Squirrly Cloud App (shown below) following the steps from this article.

In some instances, a domain that has been connected to the Squirrly Cloud can get an exclamation mark in the Connected Websites dashboard of the Squirrly Cloud App.

Keep reading to learn more about what causes this and what to do in case this happens to you.

What Causes an Added Domain to Get Exclamation Mark inside the Cloud App?

This issue is linked to the fact that the connection of a site to the Squirrly Cloud App is done via token and NOT via URL. Therefore, when a user clones a WordPress site to another domain name, here is what happens:

• User connects domain1.com to the Cloud App (cloud.squirrly.co)
• domain1.com – Squirrly URL Token 1
• User clones the existing WordPress site and moves it to a new domain name.
• domain2.com – Squirrly URL Token1

When domain1.com gets changed to domain2.com in the Settings > General option in WordPress, the Cloud App will receive a different domain based on the same token, which leads to a matching error.

Squirrly URL Token1 – domain1.com or domain2.com ?

In this situation, Squirrly Cloud will alert you that the domain name is changed but the URL Token is not.

Solution:

If a site is cloned to another domain name, the new domain name will have the same URL Token as the site it was cloned from (domain1.com), and the URL Token needs to be changed in WordPress.

The solution is to go on WordPress dashboard (on the clonned website) and to deactivate Squirrly SEO with the option to disconnect from Cloud.
Reactivate Squirrly SEO and connect the website to Cloud again using the same account.

Read more about this solution here: How Can I Change My Squirrly Account? – Squirrly SEO (Peaks)

Solution 2:

If you changed your domain name from WordPress Settings > General and you want to update the data on Squirrly Cloud to match the domain, click on the Edit icon and then click on the Set WordPress Domain button.

This process will update the domain name on Squirrly Cloud for all Focus Pages, Optimization, Rankings, etc.

What are Web Stories?

Web Stories are a web-based version of the popular Story format that you’ve probably seen on social media sites.

They are a visual storytelling format for the web, which makes it possible to create tappable, visual narratives that blend video, audio, images, animation and text.

You can use this storytelling tool on your own WordPress website to reach more people and engage your audience (Google supports Web Stories, so people can find your published stories across Google Search, Google Discover, and Google Images).

To make it easier for Google to discover your Web Stories, it’s important to include this post type in your sitemap.

In this short tutorial, we’re going to show exactly how to do this using Squirrly. Let’s get to it!

STEP 1: Install a plugin that allows you to easily create Web Stories

The Web Stories plugin for WordPress is a good one to consider using for this.

Its drag-and-drop editor makes it easy to create beautiful stories – without any coding involved.

STEP 2: Go to Squirrly SEO > Automation

Then go to Add Post Type and add Web Story (web-story) as a new post type for SEO Automation.

(as shown in the screenshot below)

STEP 3: Make sure the Web Story Post Type is included in the Sitemap

For this, you need to go to Squirrly SEO > Automation > Configuration.

Select Web Story as your post type and make sure the following options are turned ON:

• Let Google Index it
• Send Authority to it
• Include In Sitemap

If you want the Web Story Post Type to also be added in Google News Sitemap (essential for appearing in Google News), make sure that the option: Include in Google News Sitemap is also turned ON.

(as shown in the screenshot below)

STEP 4: Go to Squirrly SEO > SEO Configuration > Tweaks and Sitemaps > Sitemap XML

Activate the following options for Custom Post Types:

• Custom Taxonomies
• Custom Posts

(as shown in the screenshot below)

Don’t forget to save your settings!

☑️That’s it!

By following these steps, you can successfully include Stories in your sitemap using Squirrly.

Squirrly SEO automatically generates your sitemap when you enable the XML Sitemap settings.

On NGINX servers, you may need to add server-level rewrites in order to correctly set up the sitemap.xml file.

For this purpose, we recommend setting the following rules for Squirrly SEO sitemap in Nginx.conf:

location ~ ([^/]*)sitemap(.*).xml$ {  
rewrite ^/sitemap.xml$ /index.php?sq_feed=sitemap last;
rewrite ^/sitemap-posts.xml$ /index.php?sq_feed=sitemap-post last;  
rewrite ^/sitemap-posts.xml\?page=([0-9]+)$ /index.php?sq_feed=sitemap-post&page=$1 last;  
rewrite ^/sitemap-pages.xml$ /index.php?sq_feed=sitemap-page last;  
rewrite ^/sitemap-pages.xml\?page=([0-9]+)$ /index.php?sq_feed=sitemap-page&page=$1 last;  
rewrite ^/sitemap-categories.xml$ /index.php?sq_feed=sitemap-category last;  
rewrite ^/sitemap-tags.xml$ /index.php?sq_feed=sitemap-tag last;  
rewrite ^/sitemap-archives.xml$ /index.php?sq_feed=sitemap-archive last;  
rewrite ^/sitemap-archives.xml\?type=([a-z]+)$ /index.php?sq_feed=sitemap-archive&type=$1 last;  
rewrite ^/sitemap-custom-taxonomies.xml$ /index.php?sq_feed=sitemap-custom-tax last;  
rewrite ^/sitemap-custom-taxonomies.xml\?page=([0-9]+)$ /index.php?sq_feed=sitemap-custom-post&page=$1 last;
rewrite ^/sitemap-custom-taxonomies.xml\?page=([0-9]+)&type=([a-z]+)$ /index.php?sq_feed=sitemap-custom-post&page=$1&type=$2 last;  
rewrite ^/sitemap-custom-posts.xml$ /index.php?sq_feed=sitemap-custom-post last;  
rewrite ^/sitemap-custom-posts.xml\?page=([0-9]+)$ /index.php?sq_feed=sitemap-custom-post&page=$1 last; 
rewrite ^/sitemap-custom-posts.xml\?page=([0-9]+)&type=([a-z]+)$ /index.php?sq_feed=sitemap-custom-post&page=$1&type=$2 last; 
rewrite ^/sitemap-([a-z]+).xml$ /index.php?sq_feed=sitemap-$1 last; } 

NOTE! In case you are not 100% sure where to add these rules, we recommend reaching out to your web host or server admin and asking for further assistance.

Still Need Help?

If you’ve added the rewrite rules in the correct file, and you still encounter issues, they are likely linked to other settings on your server. You can always reach out to our support team via one of the available channels whenever you need more assistance.

Why JSON-LD?

JSON-LD makes data more accessible by annotating elements on a page, structuring the data. Not just for humans, but also for machines, the kind of machines Google is powered by. Google’s crawlers can overlook information that us humans might find vital.

By using JSON-LD, you can highlight various important details of your website to search engines.

Google uses JSON-LD structured data (JavaScript Object Notation for Linked Data) that it finds on the web in order to understand the content of the page, as well as to gather information about the web and the world in general.

In terms of SEO, JSON-LD is implemented leveraging the Schema.org vocabulary. JSON-LD is considered to be simpler to implement, thanks to the the ability to simply paste the markup within the HTML document.

A JSON-LD example would be:

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "url": "http://www.example.com",
  "name": "Your Company",
  "contactPoint": {
    "@type": "ContactPoint",
    "telephone": "+1-401-1111-1111",
    "contactType": "Customer service"
  }
}
</script> 

JSON-LD structured data influences how Google will create rich snippets for your URLs. Google uses the JSON-LD for rich snippets and featured snippets and to populate the search results with more data from each website like Breadcrumbs, Reviews, Article data, or Company Info.

Does JSON-LD as a semantic SEO markup solution sound complicated?

Don’t worry, by using Squirrly, it becomes incredibly simple to implement. No coding skills required.

Organization/ Company Schema

Have you ever wondered how some businesses or even your competition manage to have extra information when displayed in the search engine results page? Or how Google knows to generate that interesting additional information which appears on the right side?

It’s all about structuring the data! And with the JSON-LD feature that Squirrly SEO offers, you can do just that.

All you have to do is use the Company option from the Squirrly SEO> SEO Configuration > Rich Snippets section and fill in the necessary fields. It’s that easy!

Next time your website will get crawled, Google will be able to offer your future customers that additional information which can make a difference.

For more details, please check out this resource >>

Personal Brand/ Author Schema

If your website is a personal website, you need to add the author data to build a valid JSON-LD. Squirrly makes that easy as well. All you have to do is fill in the necessary fields.

For more details, please check out this resource >>

 Local Business Schema

Using the Local SEO option from Squirrly, you can specify:

• Your company’s address.
• City and Country where your company is located.
• Postal Code.
• A phone number where potential customers can reach your company.
• Contact type.

Use this option if you have a local business, like a local hair salon, for example.

With Squirrly SEO, you can also:

• set up GEO Location (help Google know what is the exact location of your business)
• define Opening Hours (tell Google about your business hours for every day of the week)

Local Restaurant Schema

If you have a local restaurant, you can use this to tell Google about:

• your restaurant’s price range,
• the type of dishes you serve,
• and whether your restaurant accepts reservations or not.

Furthermore, if you have an online menu, you can link to it.

Breadcrumbs Schema

A breadcrumb trail on a page specifies the page’s position in the site hierarchy. This is useful in terms of helping users understand and navigate a site more effectively.

Here’s how to set this up using Squirrly >>

Automated Schema / Automated JSON-LD

There are 2 ways to set up the JSON-LD type:

• 1. In Squirrly SEO Automation for each post type (Squirrly SEO > Automation > Configuration)
• 2. In Squirrly SEO Snippet for a specific URL (Squirrly SEO > Bulk SEO)

Depending on your post type, you can use Squirrly to create:

• Schema for Website
• Schema for Article
• Schema for Newsarticle
• Schema for FAQ Page

Note! By default, Squirrly loads the non-formatting Title and Description to build the FAQ Schema.

For Custom HTML Schema in Squirrly, you can install the free Advanced Custom Field (ACF) plugin and follow the tutorial for creating custom FAQ Schema for each page. (you can learn more about this here)

• Schema for Question
• Schema for Recipe
• Schema for Review
• Schema for Movie
• Schema for Video
• Schema for Local Store
• Schema for Local Restaurant
• Schema for Profile

Add CUSTOM Structured Data to Build Any kind of Schema You Need

You can add custom structured data and we link to a free JSON-LD composer you can use for anything that’s NOT handled automatically by Squirrly SEO.

The option for JSON-LD code (shown above) will only show when using SEO Expert Mode. We recommend leaving this to Auto unless you are an SEO expert and know exactly what you are doing.

For more details, please check out this resource >>

JSON-LD WooCommerce Plugin Support

• Improve the WooCommerce Product and Orders schema by enabling Squirrly to add the required data;
• Add default data for JSON-LD AggregateRating, Offers, Sku, MPN when they are missing from the product to avoid GSC errors;
• Enable Squirrly to include additional metadata fields for WooCommerce Products Inventory Section.

More details available here >>

 [RELATED QUESTIONS]

• How to Add WooCommerce Product Brands in JSON-LD?

 Here is a quick rundown of what Squirrly SEO currently offers for redirection:

• automatic redirects (at URL change)
• redirecting 404s
• redirects in Bulk SEO Settings and in the SEO Snippet for each page
• attachment page redirects options

Redirect Broken URLs

To reach this, go to: Squirrly SEO > Automation> Configuration

How does this option help you?

Say you’ve just created a new article. In this case, by default, the slug (the part of a URL which identifies a particular page on a website) will be generated based on the title of that article.

However, it could be that you created that title before knowing which keyword you want to optimize your article for, and didn’t include it in the title.

If you try to add the keyword in your article after the slug was created, it still won’t show in the slug. You can modify the slug after the article was published, but in this case, the first slug you created will link to a 404 Page.

It could also be that your article has already been indexed by Google and has authority. In this case, it can be very detrimental to your site to modify the slug and have the original link send people to a 404 Page.

And this is where the Redirect Broken URLs option comes in handy.

By switching this to ON, Squirrly will apply a 301 redirect – recommended for SEO because it’s a permanent redirect that passes full link equity (ranking power) to the redirected pages.

This helps ensure that in case a certain URL has been modified, the original URL will automatically send people directly to the modified one (while also passing authority) – without having to install a redirect plugin on your site.

Furthermore, this will NOT impact the Authority of your page or negatively affect the page’s position in Google.

By default, this option is set to OFF for all Post Types.

404 Redirects

For 404 Post Types, Squirrly offers the option to configure a Default Redirect URL to redirect the broken URLs when no valid permalink is found.

Go to Squirrly SEO > Automation > Configuration > 404 and scroll down to Default Redirect URL to set this up.

Note that in order be able to set up a default redirect URL, the option Redirect Broken URLs needs to be enabled for the 404 Post Type. (as shown in the screenshot below)

What about a 404 Monitor?

We’ve had very little interest so far in a 404 monitor (meaning NOT many people voted for this feature on our Roadmap, which led us to believe that this is not something we should focus on right now).

301 Move Permanently 

A 301 redirect is a permanent redirect that passes full link equity (ranking power) to the redirected page. It’s also a way to tell search engines that a page it is trying to reach has been permanently moved to a new location.

Because it passes full ranking power to the redirected page, a 301 redirect is recommended for SEO.

Using Squirrly, you can easily set up a 301 redirect for any URL on your site. This feature is useful for redirecting your website pages to new URLs from old URLs.

You can use it when a page on your site has been permanently moved or removed from your website, and you want to point the user to a new page instead.

The 301 Redirect Option can now be found in the Visibility section of:

• Snippets in Bulk SEO

Note that setting up a 301 redirect will cause the Element from Visibility to turn RED (this is meant to notify you of the fact that search engines will NOT index that URL on your site).

• SEO Snippets when Editing Page

• Snippets on the Front-End

To create a 301 Redirect, all you have to do is add a VALID URL in the dedicated sections.

Redirect Attachments Page

WordPress creates a separate media attachment page for every file you upload to the Media Library.

The page has its own automatically-generated URL – and ONLY contains the media content.

Having these types of pages indexed by Google can hurt your SEO in a few different ways, but you can stop Google from indexing your WordPress image attachments pages by redirecting them to the actual images.

Using the Redirect Attachments Page option from Squirrly (Squirrly SEO > SEO Configuration > Tweaks and Sitemaps > SEO Links and Redirects), you can this with one move.

When the toggle is switched to the right, the Redirect Attachments Page option is active.

Having this option active means that when someone lands on one of your attachments pages, they will be redirected to the attachment itself.

Related Questions:

• How does Squirrly Handle Broken Links?

Improving account limits is usually done through License Stacking.

However, since we are always innovating, we are also experimenting with new ways to help the overall CX (customer experience).

In case you have purchased a Code from us (for special access):

Please follow the instructions you were provided with and see that some codes only work for brand new accounts. Which means, you will need a new account with a different email address.

Remember: some special codes might only be for new accounts created using the special links you are provided with when purchasing your code. They send you to create the account using a special form. Please use that one, to ensure that your account will work well.

Contact support@squirrly.co if you need extra help.