Redirect 301 Robots Txt

Learn how to use a 301 redirect and robots.txt to optimize your website's SEO, with an example of how to block search engine crawlers.

What is a Robots.txt File?

A robots.txt file is a text file that tells search engine robots which pages or files the robot can or can't request from your site. It's used mainly to avoid overloading your server with requests; it's a good practice to set up a robots.txt file for any site that you manage.

By including a robots.txt file, you can specify which parts of your site you don't want search engines to crawl. This is useful if your site contains a lot of sensitive information that you don't want to be indexed (such as user information).

Example of Robots.txt

Below is an example of a robots.txt file that tells search engine robots not to crawl any files in the /protected/ directory:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /protected/

In this example, the User-agent: * line tells all search engine robots to follow the instructions below. The Disallow: /protected/ line tells the robots not to crawl any files in the /protected/ directory.

You can also use the robots.txt file to specify which parts of your site you do want to be indexed. For example, if you want search engines to index all pages on your site, you can add the following line to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: *
Allow: /

The Allow: / line tells robots to index all files on your site. You can also use the robots.txt file to specify which search engine robots you want to allow on your site. For example, if you only want Googlebot to crawl your site, you can add the following line to your robots.txt file:

User-agent: Googlebot
Allow: /

In this example, the User-agent: Googlebot line tells Googlebot to follow the instructions below. The Allow: / line tells Googlebot to index all files on your site.

It's important to note that the robots.txt file does not give you complete control over which parts of your site are indexed. Search engines can ignore the instructions in the robots.txt file, so it's best to use it as a guideline rather than a hard-and-fast rule.