Robots.txt - What Is It & Best Practices

SEO is a vital part of website management, making sure your web pages are fine-tuned for the search engines. The robots.txt file is an essential tool in this process, guiding search engine crawlers on which parts of your site to explore and index.

This article will explore the role of robots.txt in SEO and share best practices for maximizing its effectiveness. So, let’s unravel what the robots.txt file is and unlock its potential!

The robots.txt file is a fundamental part of technical SEO, helping you to:

• manage the crawl budget;
• prevent indexing of sensitive pages;
• and improve site efficiency.

The file does not block pages from appearing in Google Search results; for that, website owners should use ‘noindex’ directives or other exclusion methods. Instead, these blocked pages won’t have meta descriptions.

This txt file is located in a website’s root directory and follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP), which most search engines respect.

In the image below, you can see what a robots.txt typically contains.

Why Is Robots.txt Important for SEO?

Search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo deploy crawlers to index web pages. However, not all pages should be indexed or crawled frequently. Robots.txt helps to:

• optimize crawl efficiency
• protect private content
• prevent duplicate pages from affecting rankings

While it does not enforce security, it acts as a directive for search bots, instructing them how to process web pages.

Moreover, when Googlebot first visits a domain, it automatically looks for robots.txt at “https://yourdomain.com/robots.txt,” so it is one of the very first files that search engine web crawlers check when they visit a website.

How to Check If Your Website Has a Robots.txt File?

To check if your site has a robots.txt file, visit the following address in a web browser. Replace yourdomain.com with your website domain name.

yourdomain.com/robots.txt

If the file exists, its content will be displayed. If not, you may need to create a robots.txt file.

How to Create and Access Robots.txt?

1. Creating Robots.txt: Open a simple text editor like Notepad (Windows) or TextEdit (Mac). Alternatively, SiteGround users can use the File Manager provided in their Site Tools. Create a new file, add the directives, and name it robots.txt. Ensure it is saved as a plain text file, encoded in UTF-8.
   

   

2. Uploading Robots.txt: Using an FTP client or your hosting provider’s file manager, upload the robots.txt file to the root domain directory (public_html/) of your website. This ensures it is accessible at yourdomain.com/robots.txt. If you’ve created the file with the File Manager in your hosting account, skip this step.
   

   

3. Testing & Validation: To confirm that your robots.txt file is correctly formatted and accessible, use Google’s Robots.txt Tester. This tool helps identify any errors and ensures that search engines process the file correctly.
   

   

Robots.txt Syntax & Rules

The robots.txt file consists of rules that specify how different search engine crawlers should interact with a website. The most common directives include:

1. User-agent and crawler management

Defines which bot the rule applies to. Different search engines and web crawlers have unique requirements, so specifying a user agent allows for tailored rules that optimize the site’s performance. For example, if you put only “Googlebot,” this means that the rules will apply only to that user agent but won’t apply to other user agents like Bingbot.

User-agent: Googlebot

2. Disallow

This rule stops search engines from looking at certain areas of a website. It is helpful when you want to avoid duplicate content issues, like preventing search engines from indexing category pages with filter parameters. For example:

Disallow: /category-name/?filter=*

You can also block an entire category section from being crawled if it’s not relevant for search engines:

Disallow: /category-name/

By doing this, you help search engines focus on the most important pages of your site and avoid wasting crawl budget on unnecessary sections.

3. Allow

Overrides Disallow, allowing search engines to crawl specific pages or directories that would otherwise be blocked. This is useful when you need to restrict access to most of a section while still allowing certain important files to be indexed. For example:

Disallow: /private/
Allow: /private/public-file.html

This setup blocks search engines from crawling everything inside the /private/ directory except for public-file.html. Proper use of the Allow directive helps maintain a balance between privacy and discoverability.

4. Crawl-delay

This rule limits the frequency of crawling. Google does not support this directive, however, some other search engines like Bing and Yandex still do. Adjusting crawl delay can help reduce server load, especially for large websites with frequent updates.

Crawl-delay: 10

5. Sitemap Inclusion

Including a sitemap in your robots.txt file helps search engines quickly find and index important pages on your site. This is particularly useful for large websites with many pages that might otherwise take longer to be discovered.

While not mandatory, adding a sitemap directive in robots.txt is a best practice for ensuring search engines can efficiently crawl your site structure. It is best to include the XML sitemap at the end of the robots.txt file.

Sitemap: https://yourdomain.com/sitemap.xml

Best Practices for Robots.txt

1. Avoid Blocking Important Pages

Blocking essential pages (e.g., /blog/, /services/) can negatively impact rankings by preventing search engines from indexing valuable content.

For example, blocking /category-name/ might unintentionally hide all associated product or article pages, such as /category-name/product-1/.
If you need to restrict specific pages while keeping the rest visible, consider a more precise approach:

Disallow: /category-name/private-page/

Alternatively, blocking an entire category may be useful if it contains low-value or duplicate content:

Disallow: /category-name/

Carefully reviewing which sections to block ensures important content remains indexable while controlling crawl efficiency.

2. Prevent Crawling of Duplicate & Low-Value Pages

To avoid wasting the crawl budget and prevent unnecessary or duplicate pages from being indexed in the search results, use the Disallow directive effectively. Low-value pages, such as admin areas, internal search results, and dynamically generated URLs, should typically be blocked. Here are some examples:

Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /?s=

3. Use Wildcards and Pattern Matching Efficiently

Wildcards and pattern matching in robots.txt allow for more flexible and precise control over which pages search engines can or cannot crawl. This is especially useful for managing dynamically generated URLs or blocking specific file types.

For example, if your website generates URLs with filters that you don’t want indexed, you can use:

Disallow: /*?filter=*

This prevents search engines from crawling any URL that contains ?filter= regardless of the value.

Similarly, if you want to block all PDF files from being crawled, you can use:

Disallow: /*.pdf$

The $ at the end ensures that only URLs ending in .pdf are blocked, rather than blocking any URL that happens to contain .pdf anywhere in its structure.

Using wildcards strategically helps you optimize your crawl budget while preventing unnecessary or irrelevant pages from appearing in search results.

4. Ensure Your Robots.txt is Accessible

Ensuring your robots.txt file is accessible means web robots can read and follow its instructions correctly. A misconfigured or broken robots.txt file can unintentionally block search engines from crawling your entire site, leading to severe SEO issues and potential traffic loss.

To prevent this, make sure the file is correctly formatted, properly placed in the root directory, and accessible via yourdomain.com/robots.txt. Use tools like Google Search Console to test and validate the file, ensuring it does not accidentally block important pages or contain syntax errors.

5. Use Robots.txt for Crawl Budget Optimization

For large websites, blocking low-priority sections (e.g., tag pages, archive pages) helps search engines focus their crawling efforts on high-value content like product pages, service pages, or blog posts. By reducing the number of unnecessary pages crawled, you ensure that search engines spend more time indexing content that contributes to rankings.

For example, if a website has thousands of archive pages that do not provide unique value, blocking them with robots.txt can help search engines prioritize more important sections of the site.

6. Don’t Use Robots.txt for Sensitive Content Protection

Instead, use noindex meta tags, which explicitly tell search engines not to index a page while still allowing crawlers to access it. This is useful for keeping certain pages off search results without restricting user access.

Alternatively, for more sensitive content, implement authentication-based access control, ensuring that only authorized users can view the page. This approach prevents web crawlers from accessing private or confidential content altogether.

Conclusion

A well-optimized robots.txt file ensures search engines crawl your website efficiently, improving SEO and site performance. Regularly auditing and updating robots.txt ensures it aligns with your SEO goals. If you’re unsure about configurations, use Google Search Console’s robots.txt testing tool to avoid costly mistakes.