HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden [googlebot]

Question

i really need your help..

my websites ranking is now loosing because of this error, and i don't know how to fix this.. even my web hosting provider can't fix this.

when i fetch as google there's an error

Forbidden

You don't have permission to access / on this server.

Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

and also when i view my website via googlebot 2.1 using user agent switcher i got that error too, and when i test my sitemaps on webmaster tool, i got

General HTTP error: HTTP 403 error (Forbidden) HTTP Error: 403

and hope you guys help me..

this is my .htaccess

BEGIN WordPress

RewriteEngine On RewriteBase / RewriteRule ^index.php$ - [L] RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-f RewriteCond %{REQUEST_FILENAME} !-d RewriteRule . /index.php [L]

END WordPress

this i my website: http://www.naruto-tv.info all subdomain and other domain that i'm using right now had a same problem and hosted on same server. but i have one subdomain that hosted on other server and working fine.

i also already contacted my server provider but they can't fix it.

ERROR LOGS:

[Mon Apr 14 14:02:28 2014] [error] [client 66.249.77.159] client denied by server configuration: /home/markgelo/public_html/markgiver/403.shtml

[Mon Apr 14 14:02:28 2014] [error] [client 66.249.77.159] client denied by server configuration: /home/markgelo/public_html/markgiver/page

[Mon Apr 14 14:02:20 2014] [error] [client 199.21.148.45] client denied by server configuration: /home/markgelo/public_html/markgiver/403.shtml

[Mon Apr 14 14:02:20 2014] [error] [client 199.21.148.45] client denied by server configuration: /home/markgelo/public_html/markgiver/carimi-invasion-2013-itunes-aac-m4a-album

[Mon Apr 14 14:02:15 2014] [error] [client 66.249.74.183] client denied by server configuration: /home/markgelo/public_html/403.shtml

[Mon Apr 14 14:02:15 2014] [error] [client 66.249.74.183] client denied by server configuration: /home/markgelo/public_html/2013

[Mon Apr 14 14:02:07 2014] [error] [client 37.59.30.32] client denied by server configuration: /home/markgelo/public_html/markserves/403.shtml

[Mon Apr 14 14:02:07 2014] [error] [client 37.59.30.32] client denied by server configuration: /home/markgelo/public_html/markserves/2013

[Mon Apr 14 14:02:06 2014] [error] [client 66.249.74.183] client denied by server configuration: /home/markgelo/public_html/403.shtml

[Mon Apr 14 14:02:06 2014] [error] [client 66.249.74.183] client denied by server configuration: /home/markgelo/public_html/tag

[Mon Apr 14 14:02:05 2014] [error] [client 142.4.208.99] client denied by server configuration: /home/markgelo/public_html/markgiver/403.shtml

[Mon Apr 14 14:02:05 2014] [error] [client 142.4.208.99] client denied by server configuration: /home/markgelo/public_html/markgiver/2013

[Mon Apr 14 14:02:05 2014] [error] [client 66.249.77.99] client denied by server configuration: /home/markgelo/public_html/android/403.shtml

[Mon Apr 14 14:02:05 2014] [error] [client 66.249.77.99] client denied by server configuration: /home/markgelo/public_html/android/

[Mon Apr 14 14:02:05 2014] [error] [client 37.59.42.24] client denied by server configuration: /home/markgelo/public_html/markgiver/403.shtml

Answer 1

Seems that it is not .htaccess error as it seems that it is vhost settings problem generally. I you have purchased shared hosting then request you contact your service provided to resolve the issue for HTTP/1.1 403 Forbidden problem for bots.

There can be two reasons for the problem but you need Administrative access to server to resolve the issue:

First

First Reason is the directories hosted outside of the default /var/www/. Apache requires permissions to all the directories all the way up to the root of the file system where the site is hosted. In case using default location setting are automatically done and if the settings are default then this doesn't apply to you.

For example, you've got a development machine and your site's directory is:

/abc/home/mywebsite/

You may think you can get away with:

chgrp -R www-data /abc/home/mywebsite/
chmod -R 2750 /abc/home/mywebsite/

because this gives Apache permissions to access your site's directory? Well that's correct but it's not sufficient. Apache requires permissions all the way up the directory tree so what you need to do is:

chgrp -R www-data /abc/
chmod -R 2750 /abc/

Obviously I would not recommend giving access to Apache on a production server to a complete directory structure without analysing what's in that directory structure.

Second

Global Setting in the global directory setting in the httpd.conf or in the specific directory block in httpd-vhosts.conf:

Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI

By default, your global directory settings is (httpd.conf line ~188):

<Directory />
    Options FollowSymLinks
    AllowOverride All
    Order deny,allow
    Allow from all
</Directory>

set the options to :

Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI

Finally, it should look like:

<Directory />
    #Options FollowSymLinks
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI
    AllowOverride All
    Order deny,allow
    Allow from all
</Directory>

Let me know if the issue doesn't resolved.

Editing

Ok. So, the service Provider is not ready to Change setting as it is shared server. Then you must request him to change your hosting changes only through http-vhosts.conf as:

<VirtualHost *:80>
    DocumentRoot "abc"                #Your Server root directory
    ServerName def                    #Your Website name.
    <Directory "abc">                 #Your Directory Changes
    Options Indexes FollowSymLinks Includes ExecCGI
    AllowOverride All
        Order allow,deny
        Allow from all
    </Directory>
 </VirtualHost>

This will only effect your hosting setting not the other web hosting provided on shared server. Request them to change this. Hoping that they would change these setting this time.