How to Use Robot.txt File on a Website

What is a Robot.txt File?

A robot.txt file is a web standard that was first proposed by Martijn Koster in 1994 while working for Nexor. Robot.txt, or robot exclusion protocol, instructs the search engine crawlers about whether or not to crawl a certain portion (page or links)  of a website.

Nashville SEO agencies say that when a webmaster wants to let web crawlers know what parts of his website he needs to be crawled, then he uses a robot.txt file in this format:

www.name-of-website/robot.txt/

The “/robot.txt” part contains a file which has the following syntax:

• User-agent: This part specifies the name of search engine crawlers. 

E.g: User-agent: Bingbot

(Name of search engine bot)

• Permission: This part is used to either “Allow” or “Disallow” bots from accessing something on a website

E.g: Disallow: /name-of-website-subfolder/blocked-page.html 

(Tells bots to not crawl this specific page)

• Crawl-delay: Lets bots know that by how many seconds it should wait before loading or crawling page content 

E.g: Crawl-delay: 120 

(Tells bots to delay its page crawl activity by 120 seconds)

• Site Map: Used for calling out the location of  XML sitemap associated with the above URL.

When to use Robot.txt?

Professionals from a top Miami SEO agency say that using Robot.txt can be a little tricky. Because if not used properly, it can break or drive away a major chunk of your web traffic.

So here are some tips on when to use a Robot.txt file.

1. 1. When you have too many pages on your website. Because in this case if bots begin to crawl each one of your pages, then it will lead to them exceeding their crawl budget.
   2. When you wish to disallow bots from crawling all your pages when your individual page load time is too high.
   3. Nashville SEO agencies strictly advise against using robot.txt to block pages from a search engine.
   4. Use robot.txt to instruct bots to not crawls the following types of pages:

• Pages with purposeful duplicated content
• Login and sign-up pages
• Thank You pages

 

5. You may also to keep entire sections of your website private with robot.txt.

Where to Put Robot.txt File on Your Website?

A Miami SEO agency says thatbefore you put a robot.txt on your website, check whether you have one or not. For this, you need to type this in your browser’s URL bar:

https://name-of-your-wesbite.com/robot.txt/

If this returns the message “Page not found” or “Error 404”, then you currently don’t have one.

The best practice to make sure that your robot.txt file is read by crawlers is to put it on your main directory or root domain.

Conclusion

The right use of a robot.txt file is very much needed when it comes to your website. As an optimized use of this file could help you to take your SEO to the next level. But in case you are not too sure on how to use it, then consulting a web expert would make a great choice.

 More info: Top SEO Companies