Understanding Robots.txt
A robots.txt file is a crucial component of website management that tells search engine crawlers which pages they can or cannot access on your site.
What is Robots.txt?
Robots.txt is a text file placed in your website's root directory that provides instructions to web robots (typically search engine crawlers) about which areas of your site they are allowed to crawl and index.
Key Components
- User-agent: Specifies which web crawler the rules apply to
- Allow: Permits crawling of specific pages or directories
- Disallow: Prevents crawling of specific pages or directories
- Sitemap: Points to your XML sitemap location
Common Use Cases
- Preventing duplicate content indexing
- Protecting private content from search engines
- Managing crawler traffic
- Specifying preferred sitemap location
- Blocking resource files from indexing
Best Practices
- Place robots.txt in your root domain
- Use specific user-agents when needed
- Test your robots.txt before deployment
- Keep it simple and organized
- Include your sitemap location
- Regularly review and update rules
Example Patterns
# Block all crawlers from /admin
User-agent: *
Disallow: /admin/
# Allow Google only
User-agent: Googlebot
Allow: /
# Block image indexing
User-agent: *
Disallow: /images/