The robots.txt file is a standard used by websites to communicate with web crawlers (also known as bots or spiders). It helps control which parts of a website should or should not be crawled by search engines.
What is a Robots.txt File?
The robots.txt file is a text file placed in the root directory of your website (e.g., https://www.example.com/robots.txt). It provides instructions to web crawlers about which pages or sections of your site they can access.
Why is Robots.txt Important?
- Control Crawling: Helps manage crawl budget by instructing bots to avoid unnecessary or non-important pages.
- Prevent Duplicate Content Issues: Stops crawlers from indexing duplicate or unnecessary content.
- Protect Sensitive Data: Restricts crawlers from accessing areas of your site that shouldn’t be public (e.g., admin pages).
- Improve SEO: Ensures bots focus on crawling and indexing important pages.
Basic Syntax of Robots.txt
The syntax is straightforward, and it consists of:
- User-agent: Specifies the bot (e.g., Googlebot).
- Disallow: Blocks access to specific URLs or directories.
- Allow: Grants access to specific URLs (used in conjunction with
Disallow). - Sitemap: Specifies the location of your sitemap for better crawling.