Robots.txt

Robots.txt

The robots.txt file is a standard used by websites to communicate with web crawlers and other automated agents about which pages or sections of their site should not be accessed. It is a simple text file placed in the root directory of a website, which provides information to these agents about which parts of the site are off-limits. The file uses a specific syntax to specify which user agents (e.g. Googlebot, Bingbot, etc.) are allowed or disallowed from accessing certain parts of the site. While the robots.txt file is not a legally enforceable restriction, most web crawlers respect its directives and will not access the specified pages.

Robots.txt

How to use robots.txt

To use the robots.txt file, you need to create a plain text file with the name robots.txt and place it in the root directory of your website.

The file should include the following types of information:

User-agent: The name of the web crawler that the rule applies to. For example, to block all web crawlers, you can use the user-agent *.

Disallow: The path to the file or directory that should not be crawled. For example, to block access to the entire site, you can use Disallow: /.

Here's an example of a simple robots.txt file that disallows all web crawlers from accessing the entire site:

makefile
User-agent: *
Disallow: /

It's important to note that while most web crawlers will respect the directives in a robots.txt file, not all crawlers may comply, and there is no guarantee that your site will not be crawled even if you specify otherwise in the robots.txt file.

File robots.txt.

A robots.txt file is a simple text file, so the content will vary depending on the specific needs of a website. Here is an example of a full robots.txt file that specifies disallow rules for several different user agents:

javascript
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /private/

User-agent: Bingbot
Disallow: /secret/

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /tmp/
Sitemap: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

In this example, the first two blocks specify disallow rules for specific user agents (Googlebot and Bing bot). The third block applies to all user agents and disallows access to the /cgi-bin/ and /tmp/ directories. Finally, the Sitemap directive provides the location of the site's sitemap, which can be used by search engines to more effectively crawl the site.

It's important to keep your robots.txt file up to date, as changes to your site or changes to the behavior of web crawlers can affect its functionality.