The “Blocked due to access forbidden (403)” message in Google Search Console indicates that Googlebot has received a 403 HTTP status code while attempting to crawl or index a page on the site. This means the web server has been configured to forbid access to the requested URL for the Googlebot user agent.
Some common causes include bot detection tools blocking Googlebot, hotlink protection software, restrictive crawl-delay settings, missing server authentication, inadvertent access control restrictions, or issues with intermediary proxy and firewall layers.
This status message signifies that pages are being deliberately blocked from search indexing. Site owners should diagnose the underlying cause and resolve any misconfigurations or whitelist Googlebot if access should be permitted.
Enabling Googlebot to crawl and index site pages is important for having properly search-optimized content.