Generate robots.txt files instantly. Create search engine crawler directives to control how search engines crawl and index your website.
A robots.txt file is a text file placed in the root directory of your website that provides instructions to web crawlers and search engine bots about which pages or sections of your site they should or shouldn't crawl and index. It's part of the Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP) and serves as a communication mechanism between website owners and search engine crawlers.
Our free robots.txt generator simplifies the process of creating properly formatted robots.txt files. Instead of manually writing the syntax and remembering all the directives, you can use our intuitive interface to configure crawler rules, specify allowed and disallowed paths, set crawl delays, and add sitemap references. The generator creates a properly formatted robots.txt file that you can immediately upload to your website's root directory.
Robots.txt files are essential for SEO and website management. They help you control which parts of your website are crawled and indexed by search engines, preventing unnecessary crawling of private areas, duplicate content, or resource-intensive pages. Proper robots.txt configuration can improve crawl efficiency, reduce server load, and protect sensitive areas of your website.
While robots.txt directives are not legally binding (malicious bots may ignore them), reputable search engines like Google, Bing, and others respect these directives. A well-configured robots.txt file helps search engines focus their crawling efforts on your important content, potentially improving indexing efficiency and reducing wasted crawl budget on unimportant pages.
The User-agent directive specifies which crawler the following rules apply to. Use "*" to apply rules to all crawlers, or specify a specific crawler like "Googlebot", "Bingbot", or "Slurp". You can create multiple rule blocks for different user agents, allowing you to set different rules for different search engines if needed.
The Allow and Disallow directives specify which paths crawlers can or cannot access. Disallow directives take precedence when there's a conflict. You can use path patterns, wildcards, and regular expressions to match multiple paths. Common patterns include "/admin/" to block admin areas, "/*.json$" to block JSON files, and "/*?*" to block URLs with query parameters.
Path matching is prefix-based, meaning "/private" will match "/private", "/private/page", and "/private/anything". Use "$" to match exact paths (e.g., "/page$" matches only "/page", not "/page/subpage"). You can combine multiple Allow and Disallow directives in a single rule block to create complex crawling rules.
The Crawl-delay directive specifies the number of seconds a crawler should wait between requests. This helps reduce server load by slowing down aggressive crawlers. However, note that Google ignores the crawl-delay directive and uses its own rate limiting. Other search engines may respect this directive, so use it carefully based on your server capacity and traffic patterns.
The Sitemap directive tells search engines where to find your XML sitemap. You can include multiple Sitemap directives if you have multiple sitemaps. This helps search engines discover and index your sitemaps more efficiently, improving the overall indexing of your website.
User-agent: * Allow: /
User-agent: * Disallow: /admin/ Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /wp-admin/ Disallow: /wp-includes/
User-agent: * Disallow: /*.json$ Disallow: /*.xml$ Disallow: /*?*
While robots.txt is a powerful tool, it's important to understand its limitations. Robots.txt directives are suggestions, not commands. Malicious bots or scrapers may ignore your robots.txt file entirely. For sensitive content, use proper authentication and access controls rather than relying solely on robots.txt.
Also note that blocking a page in robots.txt doesn't remove it from search results if it's already indexed. To remove pages from search results, you need to use other methods like the noindex meta tag or Google Search Console's removal tool. Robots.txt prevents crawling but doesn't de-index already indexed content.
After generating your robots.txt file, test it using Google Search Console's robots.txt tester. This tool allows you to verify that your directives work as expected and identify any potential issues. You can test specific URLs to see if they're allowed or blocked according to your robots.txt rules.
Additionally, you can manually test by accessing your robots.txt file directly in a browser (e.g., https://yourdomain.com/robots.txt) to ensure it's accessible and properly formatted. The file should be plain text and follow the standard robots.txt format.
Place robots.txt in your website's root directory, accessible at https://yourdomain.com/robots.txt. It must be in the root, not in a subdirectory.
Yes, you can create separate rule blocks for specific user agents. For example, you can allow Googlebot but disallow other crawlers by creating separate User-agent blocks.
Robots.txt prevents crawling but doesn't remove already indexed pages. To remove pages from search results, use the noindex meta tag or Google Search Console's removal tool.
Yes, robots.txt supports wildcards (*) and end-of-string markers ($). However, support varies by search engine, so test thoroughly.
User-agent names are case-insensitive, but path matching may be case-sensitive depending on your server configuration. It's best to use lowercase paths for consistency.