CRAWL DELAY in Robots Txt

"Learn how to use Crawl Delay to manage web crawler traffic & see an example of how it works in robots.txt."

What is Crawl Delay in Robots.txt?

Crawl delay is a directive in the robots.txt file that tells search engine bots how frequently they should access a website. This directive can be used to restrict the number of requests made to the server by bots, which can be useful if the server is having trouble keeping up with the traffic.

The syntax of the crawl delay directive is as follows:

User-agent: *
Crawl-delay: [time in seconds]

For example, if you wanted to tell all bots to wait 10 seconds between requests, you would use the following in your robots.txt file:

User-agent: *
Crawl-delay: 10

This directive can be used to help limit the load on your server, and ensure that other users are not adversely affected by the bots accessing your site. It is important to note, however, that not all search engines support the crawl delay directive, so you should use it with caution.

It is also important to note that the crawl delay directive should not be used as a replacement for other measures to optimize your site for search engine bots, such as optimizing your page titles, meta descriptions, and content. These measures should be taken first, and then the crawl delay directive can be used to further limit the load on your server.