Understanding Robots.txt
Learn about robots.txt files and how they control search engine access to your website.
What is a robots.txt file?
A robots.txt file is a text file that sits in your website's root directory. It provides instructions to search engine crawlers about which parts of your site they can and cannot access.
Example robots.txt file:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/
Allow: /
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml
Key Components
User-agent
Specifies which search engine crawler the rules apply to. An asterisk (*) means the rules apply to all crawlers.
Allow/Disallow
Directives that tell crawlers which URLs or directories they can or cannot access.
Common Issues
- • Blocking important resources (CSS, JavaScript)
- • Incorrect syntax in directives
- • Conflicting allow/disallow rules
- • Missing or incorrect sitemap declarations
Best Practices
Do
- • Use correct syntax
- • Be specific with rules
- • Include your sitemap
- • Test your configuration
Don't
- • Block essential resources
- • Use complex patterns unnecessarily
- • Forget to validate changes
- • Rely on robots.txt for security
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