After Panda Update 4.2 rolling out last week, Google is now requesting webmasters to not block their Javascript and CSS files. This update is more of an “On Page” factor versus the earlier Panda update.

Google is finally taking the matter seriously! Google is sending out “Warning” emails to webmasters via Google Search Console that Googlebot cannot access their CSS and JS files.

We woke up this morning to this e-mail for one of our client’s website:

Matt Cutts too talked about not blocking the Javascripts & CSS back in 2012.

Here is that video-

The webmaster guidelines were updated last year to inform webmasters about the same. Here is an excerpt from the Google’s Webmaster Guidelines regarding CSS and JS files.

Google mentioned this as the first point under “Technical guideline”. Now if that wasn’t a warning sign, then this chain of Warning E-mails definitely is!

Blocking Javascripts/CSS can have a huge effect on your websites rankings, as this inhibits Google’s ability to render all pages as the user sees it.

Google seems to be sending these e-mails out in bulk – ensuring that everyone knows that this will definitely be considered as ranking factor, and might result in poorer rankings for many websites.

We suggest you to contact your developers NOW if you too got this message!