SEO

Robots.txt Basics for SEO and Crawl Control

Understand what robots.txt can do, what it cannot do, and how to prepare clean crawl directives.

May 13, 20265 min read

Robots.txt is a public file that gives crawler directives. It is useful for crawl management, but it is not an access control system.

Keep rules simple

Use clear allow and disallow paths. Complex rule sets are harder to maintain and easier to misunderstand.

Include the sitemap

Adding a sitemap directive helps crawlers find your canonical URL list.

Do not hide private data

Anything in robots.txt is public. Sensitive areas should be protected by authentication and server-side access controls.

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