Table of Contents
What Is a Robots.txt File?
The robots.txt file tells search engines which pages or sections of your site they can or cannot crawl.
Why It Matters for SEO
- Prevents crawling of duplicate content
- Saves crawl budget
- Secures sensitive or admin pages
Basic Syntax Example
User-agent: *
Disallow: /admin/
Allow: /public/
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml
Best Practices
- Never block important pages from crawling
- Add your XML sitemap in robots.txt
- Test changes using Google’s Robots.txt Tester
Final Thoughts
Robots.txt is a powerful tool, but misuse can harm SEO. Always double-check before blocking URLs.