Robots.txt Generator

Create a perfectly formatted robots.txt file for your website in seconds. Control which search engine crawlers can access which pages, protect sensitive directories, and optimise your crawl budget with our free online robots.txt generator.

✓ All Major Bots✓ Custom Rules✓ Sitemap Linking✓ Crawl Delay

Crawler Settings

Common paths to block: /wp-admin/, /cgi-bin/, /tmp/, /private/, /cart/

Search Engine Specific Rules

Generated robots.txt

Configure your rules and click "Generate robots.txt".

The robots.txt file is the first thing search engine crawlers check when visiting your website. A correctly configured robots.txt file protects sensitive pages, optimises your crawl budget, and ensures Google indexes exactly the pages you want — all of which directly impact your SEO rankings.

What is a robots.txt File?

A robots.txt file is a plain text file placed at the root of your website (e.g., https://www.yourdomain.com/robots.txt) that follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol. It provides instructions to search engine crawlers (bots) about which pages and directories they are allowed or not allowed to crawl and index.

When Googlebot visits your website, it first checks robots.txt. This file tells it which areas are off-limits, preventing Google from indexing private admin pages, duplicate content, development areas, and low-value pages that waste your crawl budget.

Why robots.txt is Critical for SEO

  • Crawl Budget Optimisation: Google allocates a limited crawl budget to each site. Blocking low-value pages ensures Google uses that budget on your important content pages.
  • Prevent Indexation of Sensitive Pages: Block /wp-admin/, /cart/, /checkout/, /login/ — pages users need but search engines shouldn't index.
  • Duplicate Content Prevention: Block URL parameter variations, search result pages, and paginated content that creates duplicate content issues.
  • Sitemap Discovery: Specifying your sitemap URL in robots.txt helps Google find all your pages faster.
  • Bandwidth Protection: Blocking aggressive bots reduces unnecessary server load.

robots.txt Syntax Guide

  • User-agent: * — Applies to all crawlers
  • User-agent: Googlebot — Applies only to Google's crawler
  • Disallow: /path/ — Block access to this path
  • Allow: /path/file.html — Override disallow for specific file
  • Crawl-delay: 10 — Wait 10 seconds between requests
  • Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml — Point to sitemap

Common Paths to Block in robots.txt

  • /wp-admin/ — WordPress admin (allow admin-ajax.php)
  • /wp-login.php — WordPress login
  • /cart/ and /checkout/ — E-commerce transaction pages
  • /search/ — Internal search results (duplicate content)
  • /?s= — WordPress search queries
  • /private/ — Private content areas
  • /cgi-bin/ — Server scripts

Frequently Asked Questions

Does robots.txt block pages from appearing in Google? +
Robots.txt prevents crawling, not necessarily indexing. If a blocked page has backlinks, Google may still index it (as a URL) but cannot see its content. To completely prevent a page from appearing in Google, use a noindex meta tag or X-Robots-Tag HTTP header instead.
What is crawl budget and why does it matter? +
Crawl budget is the number of pages Googlebot crawls on your site per day. For large websites (10,000+ pages), crawl budget optimisation ensures Google crawls your important pages frequently rather than wasting resources on low-value URLs. Small sites generally don't need to worry about crawl budget.
Is it safe to disallow all crawlers temporarily? +
Disallowing all crawlers with Disallow: / will cause Google to de-index your entire site over time. This is used for development/staging environments. Never use it on a live production site unless you want to completely remove it from Google.
Do all search engines respect robots.txt? +
Major search engines (Google, Bing, Yahoo, Baidu, Yandex) respect robots.txt as a best practice and industry standard. However, malicious bots and scrapers may ignore robots.txt entirely. For actual security, use server-level authentication (htpasswd) rather than relying on robots.txt.

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