Error 403 when sending a Google Indexing API request
When sending Google Indexing API requests, the request is considered successful if Google returned a 200 response. But very often users encounter the 403 error. This error indicates that you do not have the rights to send this request. This is a common mistake. And all possible reasons for this error are listed below.
Causes of error 403 when sending Google Indexing API requests
- After creating the Google Indexing API key, the Indexing API for the project was not activated.
- The key is not linked to the site in the Google Search Console or it has been granted the wrong rights (it must have the rights of the OWNER).
- If a site is added to the Search Console with a prefix, for example, https://site.com, but you're trying to send http://site.com. Exactly the same with/without www.
- When installing the Goolge indexer yourself, you did not correctly specify the paths in the file config.php.
- The server is on IPv6. Google only accepts requests from IPv4.
