User Agent Robots Txt

Learn what user agent robots txt is and how it can help protect your website from unwanted access with an example.

What is a User Agent Robots Txt?

A user agent robots txt is a text file that is used to communicate with web robots or “crawlers.” It is used to tell these robots which areas of the website they can and cannot access. It is located in the root directory of the website. It is also known as the Robots Exclusion Protocol or REP.

The robots.txt file is a text document that is composed of several records, each of which contains instructions for a particular robot. It is important to note that the instructions in the robots.txt file are only read and followed by robots, not by humans. The robots.txt file is completely optional, but it is a good practice to have one on your website.

A typical robots.txt file looks like this:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /tmp/
Disallow: /admin/
Allow: /

The first line specifies a user agent, which can be either a specific robot (like Googlebot) or a wildcard (*). The following lines specify which areas of the website are off-limits to the robot. In the example above, the robot is not allowed to access the cgi-bin, tmp, and admin directories. It is important to note that the robots.txt file is only a suggestion and not an instruction – robots can still access any areas of the website even if they are listed in the robots.txt file.

It is important to remember that the robots.txt file is only a suggestion and not an instruction. If a webmaster wants to completely prevent a certain robot from accessing the website, they should use other methods such as IP blocking or password protection.