The article further provides a guide on how to audit the Robots.txt file, emphasizing that it's an essential part of most technical SEO audits. It concludes with best practices to follow when using the Robots.txt file, such as creating a file for each subdomain, not blocking important pages or essential resources, including a sitemap reference, and not only allowing specific bots to access your site.
Key takeaways:
- A robots.txt file is crucial for managing how search engines crawl your site. It provides guidelines for crawlers like Googlebot and Bingbot, specifying which parts of the site are off-limits and which should be prioritized.
- Common fields included in a robots.txt file are 'user-agent', 'disallow', 'sitemap', 'allow', and 'crawl-delay'. These fields are used to specify rules for specific bots, restrict access to certain paths, provide links to XML sitemaps, and control the rate of crawling.
- Robots.txt files can be used to block low-value content, bad bots, and AI crawlers. They can also be used creatively, such as for recruitment purposes or to display playful illustrations.
- When auditing a robots.txt file, it's important to ensure that important pages and resources are not blocked, that a sitemap reference is included, and that all bots are not disallowed from accessing the site.