Allow or Disallow First in Robots.txt
-
If I want to override a Disallow directive in robots.txt with an Allow command, do I have the Allow command before or after the Disallow command?
example:
Allow: /models/ford///page*
Disallow: /models////page
-
Just caught this a bit late and probably to late to add something but my two pence is test it in Webmaster Tools, via Crawl -> Robot.txt tester - if you've not used this before simply add the url you want to test and Google highlights the directive that allows or disallows it.
-
Thank you Cyrus, yes, I have tried your suggested robots.txt checker and despite it validates the file, it shows me a couple of warnings about the "unusual" use of wildcard. It is my understanding that I would probably need to discuss all this with Google folks directly.
Thank you for you answer... and, yes Keri, I know this is a old thread, but still useful today!
Thanks
-
Can't say with 100% confidence, but sounds like it might work. You could always upload it to a server and use a robots.txt checker to validate, although sometimes the validator tools may incorporate slight differences in edge cases like this that make them moot.
-
Just a quick note, this question is actually from spring of 2012.
-
What about something like:
allow: /directory/$
disallow: /directory/*
Where I want this to be indexed:
http://www.mysite.com/directory/
But not this:
http://www.mysite.com/directory/sub-directory/
Ideas?
-
I really appreciate all that effort you put in to ensure your method was correct. many thanks.
-
Interesting question - I've had this discussion a couple of times with different SEOs. Here's my best understanding: There are actually 2 different answers - one if you are talking about Google, and one for every other search engine.
For most search engines, the "Allow" should come first. This is because the first matching pattern always wins, for the reasons Geoff stated.
But Google is different. They state:
"At a group-member level, in particular for
allow
anddisallow
directives, the most specific rule based on the length of the [path] entry will trump the less specific (shorter) rule. The order of precedence for rules with wildcards is undefined."Robots.txt Specifications - Webmasters — Google Developers
So for Google, order is not important, only the specificity of the rule based on the length of the entry. But the order of precedence for rules with wildcards is undefined.
This last part is important, because your directives contain wildcards. If I'm reading this right, your particular directives:
Allow: /models/ford///page*
Disallow: /models////pageSo if it's "undefined" which directive will Google follow, if order isn't important? Fortunately, there's a simple way to find out.Google Webmaster allows you to test any robots.txt file. I created a dummy file based on your rules, In this case, your directives worked perfectly no matter what order I put them in.
| http://cyrusshepard.com/models/ford/test/test/pages | Allowed by line 2: Allow: /models/ford///page* | Allowed by line 2: Allow: /models/ford///page* |
| http://cyrusshepard.com/models/chevy/test/test/pages | Blocked by line 3: Disallow: /models////page | Blocked by line 3: Disallow: /models////page |So, to summarize:1. Always put Allow directives first, as most search engines follow the "first rule counts" rule.2. Google doesn't care about order, but rather the specificity based on the length of the entry.3. The order of precedence for rules with wildcards is undefined.4. When in doubt, check your robots.txt file in Google Webmaster tools.Hope this helps.(sorry for the very long answer which basically says you were right all along
-
I understand your concern. I am basing my answer based on the fact that if you don't have a robots.txt at all, Google will still crawl you, which means its an allow by default. So all that matters in my opinion is the disallow, but because you need an allow from the wildcard disallow, you could allow that and disallow next.
Honestly, I don't think it matters. If you think the way a bot would work, it's not like robots.txt 1 line is read, then the bot goes crawling and then comes back reads the next line and so on. Does that make sense ? It reads all the lines in the robots.txt and then follows the directives. But to be sure, you can do either of the scenarios and see for yourself. I am sure the results would be same either way.
-
The allow directives need to come before the disallow directives for the same directory/file paths. (I have never personally tested this although it makes logical sense to instruct a robot to access one particular path within a directory structure before it sees that it is blocked from crawling that directory).
For example:-
Allow: /profiles
Disallow: /s2/profiles/me
Allow: /s2/profiles
Allow: /s2/photos
Allow: /s2/static
Disallow: /s2
As per how Google have formatted their robots.txt.
-
Thanks. I want to make sure I get this right in a syntax universally understood by all engines. I have seen webmasters all over the place on this one with some saying that crawlers use a first matching rule and others that say that crawlers use a last matching rule. I am almost thinking to have the allow command twice - before and after, to cover all bases.
-
I don't think it matters, but I think I would disallow first, because by default everything is an Allow.
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
-
Hi! I first wrote an article on my medium blog but am now launching my site. a) how can I get a canonical tag on medium without importing and b) any issue with claiming blog is original when medium was posted first?
Hi! As above, I wrote this article on my medium blog but am now launching my site, UnderstandingJiuJitsu.com. I have the post saved as a draft because I don't want to get pinged by google. a) how can I get a canonical tag on medium without importing and b) any issue with claiming the UJJ.com post is original when medium was posted first? Thanks and health, Elliott
Technical SEO | | OpenMat0 -
Robot.txt : How to block a specific file type in several subdirectories ?
Hello everyone ! I need help setting up a robot.txt. I'm trying to block all pdf files in particular directories so I'm using this command. In the example below the line is blocking all .gif in the entire site. Block files of a specific file type (for example, .gif) | Disallow: /*.gif$ 2 questions : Can I use this command to specify one particular directory in which I want to block pdf files ? Will this line be recognized by googlebots ? Disallow: /fileadmin/xxxxxxx/xxx/xxxxxxx/*.pdf$ Then I realized that I would have to write as many lines as many directories there are in which I want to block pdf files. Let's say I want to block pdf files in all these 3 directories /fileadmin/directory1 /fileadmin/directory1/sub1 /fileadmin/directory1/sub1/pdf Is there a pattern-matching rule I could use to blocks access to pdf files in all subdirectories instead of writing 3x the above line for each subdirectory ? For exemple : Disallow: /fileadmin/directory1*/ Many thanks in advance for any insight you may have.
Technical SEO | | LabeliumUSA0 -
"Url blocked by robots.txt." on my Video Sitemap
I'm getting a warning about "Url blocked by robots.txt." on my video sitemap - but just for youtube videos? Has anyone else encountered this issue, and how did you fix it if so?! Thanks, J
Technical SEO | | Critical_Mass0 -
Should I Focus on Video Schema or a Video Sitemap First
Hey all, I'm working on a website that is soon going to launch a video hub that contains over 500 videos. I'm interested in ensuring that the videos show up on the SERPs page in the highest position possible. I know Google recommends that you have on-page schema for your videos as well as an XML sitemap so they can be indexed for SERP. When I look at schema and the XML video sitemap they seem to communicate very similar kinds of information (Title, Description, Thumbnail, Duration). I'm not sure which one to start with; is it more important to have video schema or a video sitemap? Additionally, if anyone knows of any good video sitemap generators (free is best, but cheap is okay too) then please let me know. Cursory google searching has just churned up a number of tools that look sketchy.
Technical SEO | | perfectsearch710 -
Robots.txt checker
Google seems to have discontinued their robots.txt checker. Is there another tool that I can use to check my text instead? Thanks!
Technical SEO | | theLotter0 -
Using Robots.txt
I want to Block or prevent pages being accessed or indexed by googlebot. Please tell me if googlebot will NOT Access any URL that begins with my domain name, followed by a question mark,followed by any string by using Robots.txt below. Sample URL http://mydomain.com/?example User-agent: Googlebot Disallow: /?
Technical SEO | | semer0 -
Robots.txt usage
Hey Guys, I am about make an important improvement to our site's robots.txt we have large number of properties on our site and we have different views for them. List, gallery and map view. By default list view shows up and user can navigate through gallery view. We donot want gallery pages to get indexed and want to save our crawl budget for more important pages. this is one example of our site: http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/France/r31.htm When you click on "gallery view" URL of this site will remain same in your address bar: but when you mouse over the "gallery view" tab it will show you URL with parameter "view=g". there are number of parameters: "view=g, view=l and view=m". http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/France/r31.htm?view=l http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/France/r31.htm?view=g http://www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/France/r31.htm?view=m Now my question is: I If restrict bots by adding "Disallow: ?view=" in our robots.txt will it effect the list view too? Will be very thankful if yo look into this for us. Many thanks Hassan I will test this on some other site within our network too before putting it to important one's. to measure the impact but will be waiting for your recommendations. Thanks
Technical SEO | | holidayseo0 -
Crawling image folders / crawl allowance
We recently removed /img and /imgp from our robots.txt file thus allowing googlebot to crawl our image folders. Not sure why we had these blocked in the first place, but we opened them up in response to an email from Google Product Search about not being able to crawl images - which can/has hurt our traffic from Google Shopping. My question is: will allowing Google to crawl our image files eat up our 'crawl allowance'? We wouldn't want Google to not crawl/index certain pages, and ding our organic traffic, because more of our allotted crawl bandwidth is getting chewed up crawling image files. Outside of the non-detailed crawl stat graphs from Webmaster Tools, what's the best way to check how frequently/ deeply our site is getting crawled? Thanks all!
Technical SEO | | evoNick0