A robots.txt file is a simple text file. SEO specialists places Robots.txt file on a website to instruct web crawlers, bots, and spiders about which pages or sections of the site they can access or index. It is an essential file to control search engines such as Google, Bing, Yandex, Baidu, etc.
Key Points About robots.txt:
- Location: In SEO, We place file on website’s directory such as (e.g., www.example.com/robots.txt).
- Purpose:
- Allow or disallow access:Robots.txt file tells crawlers which part they can or can not crawl.
- Avoid overloading server: If you have a large site or specific resources you don’t want crawlers to access (like admin pages, scripts, or duplicate content), robots.txt can help prevent unnecessary traffic.
Format: The file follows a specific syntax to give instructions. Here are a couple of examples:
Disallow a specific page or directory:
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User-agent: *
Disallow: /admin/
This will block all bots (User-agent: *) from crawling the /admin/ directory.
Allow a specific bot to access a section:
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User-agent: Googlebot
Allow: /public/
This allows Googlebot to crawl the /public/ directory.
Poor Ad Scheduling
Running ads 24/7 is like keeping your store open at 3 AM when no one’s shopping. Smart scheduling means:
- Analyzing your best-performing hours
- Understanding your audience’s active times
- Adjusting bids during peak conversion periods
- Reducing or pausing ads during dead zones
- User-Agent: The “User-agent” specifies which crawler the rule applies to. For example:
- User-agent: * means the rule applies to all crawlers.
- User-agent: Googlebot refers specifically to Google’s crawler.
Sitemap: It is one best things to add sitemap to robots.txt. It helps search engines find and index your content more efficiently.
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Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml
Important Considerations:
- Not a security measure: If you block certain sections with robots.txt, it doesn’t prevent people from accessing them directly via a browser. It’s mainly a directive for crawlers.
- Not foolproof: Some bots may ignore robots.txt instructions. It works best with well-behaved, reputable search engines.
Example of an essential robots.txt:
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User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/
Disallow: /login/
Allow: /public/
Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml
This example tells all bots not to crawl the /private/ and /login/ directories but to crawl /public/ and provides the sitemap’s location for better indexing.
