Every website needs a robots.txt file, as it tells search engines which pages to index. Simply put, the file specifies which pages search engines should index and which they shouldn't. Before crawling a website, Google's search robots check robots.txt and read its contents. This takes a fraction of a second, so users don't notice it at all.
You can view this file on any website at https://xxx.ua/robots.txt, where xxx is the domain. It may contain many lines, but the key ones are the Disallow and Allow directives (forbidden and allowed). Next to each directive are the site sections that the search engine is blocked from or allowed to access.
What is robots.txt for?
Some may wonder why you'd block search engines from indexing certain sections. Won't it harm the site if some pages can't be found even by targeted search? No, there's no harm at all!
What is page indexing? It's a search engine collecting information about a section's content. Why would Google need information about, say, the "Contacts" section or the "Leave a request" block? People don't look for these elements in search — they use them on the site itself. And the fewer pages are indexed, the faster the whole process goes.
Other functions of robots.txt:
- reducing server load during crawling (imagine the search engine having to check every page each time without this file);
- specifying the path to the sitemap;
- defining the site's main mirror.
How a robots.txt file is created
When working with this tool, it's important to avoid gross errors:
- paths to sections or folders are specified vaguely (you can't just write "folder" or something similar);
- the file contains unsupported characters;
- the file is not in plain text format.
A robots.txt file is created either manually in a text editor (such as Windows Notepad) or with special online services. Everyone chooses the most convenient way. Experienced SEO specialists don't trust this task to third-party services, as something may be missed.
Before creating the file, you need to know all the directives:
- User-agent — the search robot the rule applies to (for example, Googlebot);
- Disallow — prohibits indexing of folders;
- Allow — permits indexing of folders;
- Noindex — prohibits indexing of part of the content;
- Clean-param — excludes part of a page's URL from indexing;
- Host — the site's mirror;
- Sitemap — the path to the sitemap.
Only after learning these directives can you create the text file. It's very simple: each new line contains a directive and a path (for example, "Disallow: /bin/" means "don't index links from the shopping cart"). Some webmasters leave comments marked with "#" — search engines ignore them and they don't affect the file.
How to make sure robots.txt is correct
Testing the file is very important. You can check it with Google's tools, but only after uploading it to the site's root. Do that and open the file at https://xxx.ua/robots.txt, where xxx is your domain. If you see an error, something's wrong. Ideally, you should see the indexing rules with Disallow, Allow and other directives.
Don't underestimate robots.txt
A missing or incorrectly written robots.txt file hurts the indexing of the whole site, so this SEO tool shouldn't be neglected. If you don't know where robots.txt should go or how to write it correctly, leave it to the specialists. The CYBORG web studio will do everything needed to write robots.txt and add it to your site's root. First, we'll carry out an analysis to determine the site's structure and which sections need to be indexed.
If you want to promote your website to the top of search engines effectively, contact Cyborg Studio on +380 67 250 60 02
