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    4. Robots.txt - Do I block Bots from crawling the non-www version if I use www.site.com ?

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    Robots.txt - Do I block Bots from crawling the non-www version if I use www.site.com ?

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
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    • morg45454
      morg45454 last edited by

      my site uses is set up at http://www.site.com I have my site redirected from non- www to the www in htacess file. My question is... what should my robots.txt file look like for the non-www site? Do you block robots from crawling the site like this? Or do you leave it blank?

      User-agent: *

      Disallow: /

      Sitemap: http://www.morganlindsayphotography.com/sitemap.xml

      Sitemap: http://www.morganlindsayphotography.com/video-sitemap.xml

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • PatrickDelehanty
        PatrickDelehanty last edited by

        Hi there

        If you configured this properly, I wouldn't worry about this at all.

        Check your internal links and sitemap to make sure that your URLs listed as a reflection of this www. version.

        Beyond that, you're all good, no need to block non www.

        Hope this helps! Good luck!

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 2
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