Question 1

What is a robots.txt file?

Accepted Answer

A robots.txt file is a text file that tells search engine crawlers which pages or sections of your website they can or cannot access. It's a standard used by websites to communicate with web crawlers and other web robots.

Question 2

Where should I put my robots.txt file?

Accepted Answer

Your robots.txt file should be placed in the root directory of your website. For example, if your website is example.com, the robots.txt file should be accessible at example.com/robots.txt.

Question 3

Do I need a robots.txt file?

Accepted Answer

While not mandatory, having a robots.txt file is recommended for most websites. It helps search engines crawl your site more efficiently by telling them which parts of your site to focus on and which to ignore.

Question 4

Can robots.txt block my site from being indexed?

Accepted Answer

No, robots.txt only controls crawling, not indexing. To prevent a page from appearing in search results, you should use a noindex meta tag or HTTP header. Search engines might still index a page blocked by robots.txt if other sites link to it.

Question 5

What's the difference between 'Allow' and 'Disallow'?

Accepted Answer

The 'Disallow' directive tells search engines not to crawl specific URLs or patterns. The 'Allow' directive is used to override a 'Disallow' directive, permitting search engines to crawl specific pages within a disallowed section.

Action	Path	Bot	Actions
Allow Disallow	/example-path
Allow Disallow	/example-path

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