Robots.txt File and Its Usage

The robots.txt file is a text file located at the root of a website that tells search engine crawlers which pages or directories can and cannot be crawled. This file gives webmasters control over how search engines crawl their site. When used correctly, the robots.txt file can support your SEO strategies and help your website be crawled more efficiently by search engines.

Basic Structure of Robots.txt File

Robots.txt File and Its Usage

The robots.txt file is a simple text file and must be written in a specific format. Its basic structure is as follows:

• User-agent: Specifies which search engine bot to apply to. For example, User-agent: * applies to all bots.

• Disallow: Used to prevent pages or directories from being scanned. For example, Disallow: /private/ prevents all pages in the "private" directory from being scanned. Allow: Used to allow specific pages or directories to be scanned.

Example I will show you, Robots.txt File:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/
Allow: /public/

What is the Importance of Robots.txt File?

• Crawl Budget Management: Search engines spend a certain amount of time crawling your site. The robots.txt file helps you use your crawl budget more efficiently by determining which pages bots will crawl.
• Hidden Content Protection: If you do not want private or hidden content to be indexed by search engines, you can protect it by disallowing the directories where this content is located.
• Duplicate Content Management: To prevent duplicate content issues, you can specify which pages search engines should consider by blocking certain pages from being crawled.
• SEO Performance: A properly structured robots.txt file can help search engines understand your site better and achieve better rankings.

Creating and Using a Robots.txt File

• Creating a File: Create the robots.txt file using a simple text editor (Notepad, TextEdit, etc.). Edit the content of the file according to the rules mentioned above.
• Upload: Upload the robots.txt file you created to the root directory of your website. For example, www.example.com/robots.txt should be accessible.
• Testing: You can test if your robots.txt file is working properly using tools like Google Search Console. These tools help you check which pages can and cannot be crawled.

Things to Consider

• Incorrect Usage: Incorrectly configuring the robots.txt file can prevent important pages from being crawled by search engines, so it should be created with caution.
• Privacy: Robots.txt file is public. So, you should not store any confidential information in this file. You may need to take other security measures for confidential content.
• Using Noindex: If you do not want a page to appear in search results, you should use the noindex meta tag instead of the robots.txt file. Robots.txt prevents the page from being crawled, but the page can still appear in search results.

Advanced Use of Robots.txt File

• Sitemap Integration: You can help search engines better understand the structure of your site by adding the URL of your site's XML sitemap to your robots.txt file. For example:

Sitemap: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

• Custom Rules for Different User-Agents: You can define custom rules for different search engines. For example, it is possible to define different rules for Googlebot and Bingbot:

User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /no-google/

User-agent: Bingbot
Disallow: /no-bing/

• Temporary Blocks: If you want to block pages from being crawled for a certain period of time, you can temporarily update your robots.txt file. For example, block certain pages during maintenance work.

You can also access detailed information on the exact method Google likes from the website address I will give and get additional information. 

How to write and submit robots.txt file

In conclusion, I have to tell you this

Robots.txt file is an important tool for webmasters. In fact, when used correctly, it allows search engines to crawl your site more efficiently and will increase your SEO performance. Therefore, you should carefully create your robots.txt file and update it regularly. If you have made updates to your website, it is useful to update your file as well.

Effective management of this file is critical for the success of your website. Really friends, this file is used to inform Google and other search engines about which page to index on your website and which page to scan in detail. For example, if you do not want unnecessary bot websites to crawl your website, it will be needed for this. It is a critical file, so be careful to use it carefully.

Last Update: 08 Mar, 2025