What is robots.txt? How does it help search engine crawlers to index your website? Why do you need to create this type of file?
Robots.txt is a text file used to regulate access to certain areas of a website. It tells search engine crawlers which pages they can visit and which pages should be avoided.
This file is also used by webmasters to prevent certain content from being indexed or crawled by search engines. Robots.txt is an important aspect of SEO as it helps ensure that your website content is properly indexed for relevant keyword searches, thus increasing visibility and traffic to your site.
What is robots.txt and how robots.txt file works?
A robots.txt file is a text file used to tell search engine bots which pages of your website they should and should not crawl. This is commonly referred to as the “Robot Exclusion Protocol” or “REP”. The purpose of this protocol is primarily for security, but it can also be used to control how much traffic your website receives from search engines.
It allows you to specify which parts of your website can be crawled and indexed. This is useful if there are areas of your site that you don’t want search engines to index, such as sensitive information or confidential documents. It also helps prevent robots from crawling too frequently or taking up too much bandwidth on your server.
Where does robots.txt go on the site?
It is often placed at the root of a website, but some websites may place it in subdirectories. If you want to find the robots.txt file, add “/robots.txt” after your domain. If you have a file, it should load quickly.
What should the robots.txt file look like (with an example)
A robots.txt file in WordPress will contain one (or more) blocks of instructions. Each should start with the User-Agent line.
A basic example of a robots.txt file might look like this:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /secret/This snippet of code tells web robots that they should not visit any pages in “incognito” directories.
Another example could be:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /admin/This tells web robots not to crawl any pages in the “admin” directory.
and another:
User-agent: Googlebot
Allow: /home/
Disallow: /*.html$This tells Googlebot to crawl all pages in the “home” directory, but not any HTML files.
Why do you need robots.txt?
By using a robots.txt file, you can prevent search engine bots like Googlebot and Bingbot from spending time on pages that are not important to your website. The goal is to avoid overloading your website with too many requests. For example, if you have a page with personal information that shouldn’t be indexed by Google or Bing, you can use robots.txt to prevent it from being indexed.
On the other hand, if you want certain pages to be crawled by search engines, such as product pages or blog posts, you can also add these URLs to your robots.txt file. This will help search engines index those pages and make them available in SERPs.
Optimizing WordPress robots.txt file for better SEO
It is important to use the correct syntax and rules in a robots.txt file to increase the visibility of your WordPress website in search engine results. This can affect how crawlers move around and index your website, as well as which pages are available to crawl.
Be sure to include the sitemap directive in your robots.txt file, which helps search engine crawlers find and access your sitemap. You should also include a “disallow” directive in your robots.txt file, which prevents search engine crawlers from accessing specific sections or pages on your website.
Here’s our in-depth guide on customizing your robots.txt file in WordPress.
Conclusion
Robots.txt is an essential part of your website infrastructure and should be taken full advantage of. This can help you protect sensitive data, improve SEO, and direct search engine bots to the data you want to access on your website.
Robots.txt is a powerful tool that can help you control your website’s visibility and usability, so use it wisely.
