Block all but one URL in a directory using robots.txt?
-
Is it possible to block all but one URL with robots.txt?
for example domain.com/subfolder/example.html, if we block the /subfolder/ directory we want all URLs except for the exact match url domain.com/subfolder to be blocked.
-
Robots.txt files are sequential, which means they follow directives in the order they appear. So if two directives conflict, they will follow the last one.
So the simple way to do this is to disallow all files first, then allow the directory you want next. It would look something like this:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /User-agent: *
Allow: /testCaveat: This is NOT the way robots.txt is supposed to work. By design, robots.txt is designed for disallowing, and technically you shouldn't ever have to use it for allowing. That said, this should work pretty well.
You can check your work in Google Webmaster, which has a robots.txt checker. Site Configuration > Crawler Access. Just type in your proposed robots.txt, then a test URL and you should be good to go.
Hope this helps!
-
According to my knowledge this possibility does not exist. One fast method to get over this is to get a crawler program to crawl your urls, so that you can quickly copy out all url in the folder paste in in the robots.txt and leave aout the one that you want in the index.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Wrong redirect used
Hi Folks,
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Patrick_556
I have a query & looking for some opinions. Our site migrated to https://
Somewhere along the line between the developer & hosting provided 302 redirect was implemented instead of the recommended 301 (the 301 rule was not being honured in the htaccess file.)
1 week passed, I noticed some of our key phrases disappear from the serps 😞 When investigated, I noticed this the incorrect redirect was implemented. The correct 301 redirect has now been implemented & functioning correctly. I have created a new https property in webmaster tools, Submitted the sitemap, Provided link in the robots.txt file to the https sitemap Canonical tags set to correct https. My gut feeling is that Google will take some time to realise the problem & take some time to update the search results we lost. Has anyone experienced this before or have any further thoughts on how to rectify asap.0 -
Not sure how we're blocking homepage in robots.txt; meta description not shown
Hi folks! We had a question come in from a client who needs assistance with their robots.txt file. Metadata for their homepage and select other pages isn't appearing in SERPs. Instead they get the usual message "A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn more". At first glance, we're not seeing the homepage or these other pages as being blocked by their robots.txt file: http://www.t2tea.com/robots.txt. Does anyone see what we can't? Any thoughts are massively appreciated! P.S. They used wildcards to ensure the rules were applied for all locale subdirectories, e.g. /en/au/, /en/us/, etc.
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SearchDeploy0 -
Robots txt is case senstive? Pls suggest
Hi i have seen few urls in the html improvements duplicate titles Can i disable one of the below url in the robots.txt? /store/Solar-Home-UPS-1KV-System/75652
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Rahim119
/store/solar-home-ups-1kv-system/75652 if i disable this Disallow: /store/Solar-Home-UPS-1KV-System/75652 will the Search engines scan this /store/solar-home-ups-1kv-system/75652 im little confused with case senstive.. Pls suggest go ahead or not in the robots.txt0 -
Are these URLs too Keyword-packed?
Hi guys, Here is the URL: http://www.consumerbase.com/mailing-lists/dog-stores-mailing-list.html The target keywords are "Dog stores mailing list" and "Dog stores mailing lists" Does having "mailing-list" and "mailing-lists" in my URL hurt me?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Travis-W0 -
Does using robots.txt to block pages decrease search traffic?
I know you can use robots.txt to tell search engines not to spend their resources crawling certain pages. So, if you have a section of your website that is good content, but is never updated, and you want the search engines to index new content faster, would it work to block the good, un-changed content with robots.txt? Would this content loose any search traffic if it were blocked by robots.txt? Does anyone have any available case studies?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | nicole.healthline0 -
Does It Really Matter to Restrict Dynamic URLs by Robots.txt?
Today, I was checking Google webmaster tools and found that, there are 117 dynamic URLs are restrict by Robots.txt. I have added following syntax in my Robots.txt You can get more idea by following excel sheet. #Dynamic URLs Disallow: /?osCsidDisallow: /?q= Disallow: /?dir=Disallow: /?p= Disallow: /*?limit= Disallow: /*review-form I have concern for following kind of pages. Shorting by specification: http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?dir=asc&order=name Iterms per page: http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?dir=asc&limit=60&order=name Numbering page of products: http://www.vistastores.com/table-lamps?p=2 Will it create resistance in organic performance of my category pages?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | CommercePundit0 -
Does URL format affect Keyword effectiveness for a URL?
I am looking at our site structure, and don't want to have to rebuild the way the site was linked together based on it's current folder structure so I am wondering what option would work better for our URL structure. I will uses car categories as an example of what I am talking about, but you can insert any category structure you like. For example I would like to have pages like this: www.example.com/ford-convertibles
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | SL_SEM
www.example.com/chevy-convertibles But instead due to the site structure I will need to have pages like this: www.example.com/ford/convertibles
www.example.com/chevy/convertibles But wonder if I shouldn't do the following to ensure the proper phrase is known for the page: www.example.com/ford/ford-convertibles
www.example.com/chevy/chevy-convertibles The "/ford/ford-convertibles" just seems odd to me as a human, but I haven't seen anything on how well a keyphrase in a URL split by /'s does and I know dashes for phrases are fine. This means I am inclined to go with the"/ford/ford-convertibles"style because it keeps the keyphrase separated by dashes even if it is a bit repetitive. There will be other pages too like "/ford/top-10-fords-ever" but I don't wonder about that since it isnt "ford/ford-xxxxx" Thoughts on whether /'s in a keyphrase are as good as dashes?0 -
Is it OK to have a site that has some URLs with hyphens and other, older, legacy URLs that use underscores?
I'm working with a VERY large site that has recently been redesigned/recategorized. They kept only about 20% of the URLs from the legacy site, the URLs that had revenue tied to them, and these URLs use underscores. Whereas the new URLs created for the site use hyphens. I don't think that this would be an issue for Google, as long as the pages are of quality, but I wanted to get everyone's opinion on this. Will it hurt me to have two different sets of URLs, those with using hyphens and those using underscores?
Intermediate & Advanced SEO | | Business.com0