Robots.txt
-
should I add anything else besides User-Agent: * to my robots.txt file?
-
Thanks for the explanation!
-
Thank you Ryan
-
Every section of your robots.txt file consists of declaring the agents the rules will apply to, and then the rules themselves.
In your file the User-Agent: * is the first part, where you are saying the following rules apply to every type of visitor. But if you only have that, and no actual rules, then you don't really need a robots.txt file. The "normal" file Jordan refers to in his answer is probably a good best practice, but isn't technically necessary.
-
Thank you Jordan
-
If I'm implementing just a "normal" robots.txt file I always put
User-agent: * Allow: /
But you can also list a directory that you don't want to be indexed like
Disallow: /downloads
So if you wanted your whole site to be indexed except for /downloads and /users I believe your robots.txt would look like
User-agent: *
Disallow: /downloads
Disallow: /users
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
-
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 -
Multiple robots.txt files on server
Hi! I have previously hired a developer to put up my site and noticed afterwards that he did not know much about SEO. This lead me to starting to learn myself and applying some changes step by step. One of the things I am currently doing is inserting sitemap reference in robots.txt file (which was not there before). But just now when I wanted to upload the file via FTP to my server I found multiple ones - in different sizes - and I dont know what to do with them? Can I remove them? I have downloaded and opened them and they seem to be 2 textfiles and 2 dupplicates. Names: robots.txt (original dupplicate)
Technical SEO | | mjukhud
robots.txt-Original (original)
robots.txt-NEW (other content)
robots.txt-Working (other content dupplicate) Would really appreciate help and expertise suggestions. Thanks!0 -
Is sitemap required on my robots.txt?
Hi, I know that linking your sitemap from your robots.txt file is a good practice. Ok, but... may I just send my sitemap to search console and forget about adding ti to my robots.txt? That's my situation: 1 multilang platform which means... ... 2 set of pages. One for each lang, of course But my CMS (magento) only allows me to have 1 robots.txt file So, again: may I have a robots.txt file woth no sitemap AND not suffering any potential SEO loss? Thanks in advance, Juan Vicente Mañanas Abad
Technical SEO | | Webicultors0 -
Why is robots.txt blocking URL's in sitemap?
Hi Folks, Any ideas why Google Webmaster Tools is indicating that my robots.txt is blocking URL's linked in my sitemap.xml, when in fact it isn't? I have checked the current robots.txt declarations and they are fine and I've also tested it in the 'robots.txt Tester' tool, which indicates for the URL's it's suggesting are blocked in the sitemap, in fact work fine. Is this a temporary issue that will be resolved over a few days or should I be concerned. I have recently removed the declaration from the robots.txt that would have been blocking them and then uploaded a new updated sitemap.xml. I'm assuming this issue is due to some sort of crossover. Thanks Gaz
Technical SEO | | PurpleGriffon0 -
Why Google ranks a page with Meta Robots: NO INDEX, NO FOLLOW?
Hi guys, I was playing with the new OSE when I found out a weird thing: if you Google "performing arts school london" you will see w w w . mountview . org. uk at the 3rd position. The point is that page has "Meta Robots: NO INDEX, NO FOLLOW", why Google indexed it? Here you can see the robots.txt allows Google to index the URL but not the content, in article they also say the meta robots tag will properly avoid Google from indexing the URL either. Apparently, in my case that page is the only one has the tag "NO INDEX, NO FOLLOW", but it's the home page. so I said to myself: OK, perhaps they have just changed that tag therefore Google needs time to re-crawl that page and de-index following the no index tag. How long do you think it will take to don't see that page indexed? Do you think it will effect the whole website, as I suppose if you have that tag on your home page (the root domain) you will lose a lot of links' juice - it's totally unnatural a backlinks profile without links to a root domain? Cheers, Pierpaolo
Technical SEO | | madcow780 -
Robots.txt
I have a client who after designer added a robots.txt file has experience continual growth of urls blocked by robots,tx but now urls blocked (1700 aprox urls) has surpassed those indexed (1000). Surely that would mean all current urls are blocked (plus some extra mysterious ones). However pages still listing in Google and traffic being generated from organic search so doesnt look like this is the case apart from the rather alarming webmaster tools report any ideas whats going on here ? cheers dan
Technical SEO | | Dan-Lawrence0 -
Search engines have been blocked by robots.txt., how do I find and fix it?
My client site royaloakshomesfl.com is coming up in my dashboard as having Search engines have been blocked by robots.txt, only I have no idea where to find it and fix the problem. Please help! I do have access to webmaster tools and this site is a WP site, if that helps.
Technical SEO | | LeslieVS0 -
Robots.txt question
I want to block spiders from specific specific part of website (say abc folder). In robots.txt, i have to write - User-agent: * Disallow: /abc/ Shall i have to insert the last slash. or will this do User-agent: * Disallow: /abc
Technical SEO | | seoug_20050