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
-
Disallowing URL Parameters vs. Canonicalizing
Hi all, I have a client that has a unique search setup. So they have Region pages (/state/city). We want these indexed and are using self-referential canonicals. They also have a search function that emulates the look of the Region pages. When you search for, say, Los Angeles, the URL changes to _/search/los+angeles _and looks exactly like /ca/los-angeles. These search URLs can also have parameters (/search/los+angeles?age=over-2&time[]=part-time), which we obviously don't want indexed. Right now my concern is how best to ensure the /search pages don't get indexed and we don't get hit with duplicate content penalties. The options are this: Self-referential canonicals for the Region pages, and disallow everything after the second slash in /search/ (so the main search page is indexed) Self-referential canonicals for the Region pages, and write a rule that automatically canonicalizes all other search pages to /search. Potential Concern: /search/ URLs are created even with misspellings. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | Alces1 -
Crawl solutions for landing pages that don't contain a robots.txt file?
My site (www.nomader.com) is currently built on Instapage, which does not offer the ability to add a robots.txt file. I plan to migrate to a Shopify site in the coming months, but for now the Instapage site is my primary website. In the interim, would you suggest that I manually request a Google crawl through the search console tool? If so, how often? Any other suggestions for countering this Meta Noindex issue?
Technical SEO | | Nomader1 -
Clarification regarding robots.txt protocol
Hi,
Technical SEO | | nlogix
I have a website , and having 1000 above url and all the url already got indexed in Google . Now am going to stop all the available services in my website and removed all the landing pages from website. Now only home page available . So i need to remove all the indexed urls from Google . I have already used robots txt protocol for removing url. i guess it is not a good method for adding bulk amount of urls (nearly 1000) in robots.txt . So just wanted to know is there any other method for removing indexed urls.
Please advice.0 -
Do you only allow one URL (link) per Keyword?
I'm basically working with an outsourced SEO company. They fix 20 on-page links every month. To broaden my point, I'd like to know how to check up on their progress by using MOZ. Do you have any advice? Also, would we be able to use more than one link per keyword? I don't see this option but maybe you can help me with any suggestions. Thanks! Nzo Tiano
Technical SEO | | ckroaster0 -
First Click Free
Hello - I'm working on http://www.thealzheimerscaregiver.com. The site is in Drupal, however, is being transferred to WordPress. Does anyone have a recommendation on implementing First Click Free on a WordPress website. I haven't found anything very specific. Thanks!
Technical SEO | | manutx0 -
Robots.txt
Hello Everyone, The problem I'm having is not knowing where to have the robots.txt file on our server. We have our main domain (company.com) with a robots.txt file in the root of the site, but we also have our blog (company.com/blog) where were trying to disallow certain directories from being crawled for SEO purposes... Would having the blog in the sub-directory still need its own robots.txt? or can I reference the directories i don't want crawled within the blog using the root robots.txt file? Thanks for your insight on this matter.
Technical SEO | | BailHotline0 -
Robots exclusion
Hi All, I have an issue whereby print versions of my articles are being flagged up as "duplicate" content / page titles. In order to get around this, I feel that the easiest way is to just add them to my robots.txt document with a disallow. Here is my URL make up: Normal article: www.mysite.com/displayarticle=12345 Print version of my article www.mysite.com/displayarticle=12345&printversion=yes I know that having dynamic parameters in my URL is not best practise to say the least, but I'm stuck with this for the time being... My question is, how do I add just the print versions of articles to my robots file without disallowing articles too? Can I just add the parameter to the document like so? Disallow: &printversion=yes I also know that I can do add a meta noindex, nofollow tag into the head of my print versions, but I feel a robots.txt disallow will be somewhat easier... Many thanks in advance. Matt
Technical SEO | | Horizon0 -
Subdomain Removal in Robots.txt with Conditional Logic??
I would like to see if there is a way to add conditional logic to the robots.txt file so that when we push from DEV to PRODUCTION and the robots.txt file is pushed, we don't have to remember to NOT push the robots.txt file OR edit it when it goes live. My specific situation is this: I have www.website.com, dev.website.com and new.website.com and somehow google has indexed the DEV.website.com and NEW.website.com and I'd like these to be removed from google's index as they are causing duplicate content. Should I: a) add 2 new GWT entries for DEV.website.com and NEW.website.com and VERIFY ownership - if I do this, then when the files are pushed to LIVE won't the files contain the VERIFY META CODE for the DEV version even though it's now LIVE? (hope that makes sense) b) write a robots.txt file that specifies "DISALLOW: DEV.website.com/" is that possible? I have only seen examples of DISALLOW with a "/" in the beginning... Hope this makes sense, can really use the help! I'm on a Windows Server 2008 box running ColdFusion websites.
Technical SEO | | ErnieB0