Robots.txt Generator FAQ

Question 1

What is a robots.txt file?

Accepted Answer

robots.txt is a text file placed at the root of your website (https://yourdomain.com/robots.txt) that instructs web crawlers which pages and directories they should and should not crawl. It follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol standard. Most major crawlers — Googlebot, Bingbot, and others — respect the directives in this file. It is not a security measure — it's a courtesy protocol that well-behaved bots follow.

Question 2

What is the difference between Disallow and noindex?

Accepted Answer

Disallow in robots.txt prevents a crawler from visiting the URL. The noindex meta tag tells a crawler that has already visited the page not to include it in search results. An important nuance: a page that is Disallowed cannot also be noindexed in practice — if the crawler can't visit the page, it can't read the noindex directive. For pages you want out of search results, use noindex on the page itself rather than Disallow in robots.txt.

Question 3

Does Disallow hide a page from Google?

Accepted Answer

No. Disallow prevents crawling — Googlebot won't visit the page. But Google can still know the URL exists if other pages link to it, and may show the URL in search results with no snippet (a bare URL). To prevent a page from appearing in search results entirely, you need a noindex directive on the page, which requires the page to be crawlable. The Meta Tag Generator can help you add the correct robots meta tag.

Question 4

What paths should I typically Disallow?

Accepted Answer

Common paths to disallow: /admin/ (admin panels), /login and /register (authentication pages), /cart/ and /checkout/ (e-commerce transaction pages with no SEO value), /api/ (API endpoints), /search?q= (internal search result pages — these are often duplicate or thin content), /tmp/ and /private/ (internal directories), and URL parameter patterns that generate duplicate content.

Question 5

What is the Sitemap directive in robots.txt?

Accepted Answer

Adding Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml to your robots.txt provides search engines with the direct URL to your XML sitemap. This supplements, but doesn't replace, submitting your sitemap in Google Search Console. The sitemap URL should be absolute (include the https:// protocol and domain).

Question 6

What is the * wildcard in robots.txt?

Accepted Answer

In User-agent: *, the asterisk matches all crawlers not specified by a more specific User-agent rule. In Disallow paths, the $ wildcard matches the end of the URL. Disallow: /*.json$ blocks all URLs ending in .json. There is no way to match middle segments with a wildcard in standard robots.txt — each Disallow rule matches URLs that begin with the specified path.

Question 7

Should I block CSS and JavaScript files?

Accepted Answer

No. Google's crawler needs to access your CSS and JavaScript to render the page and understand its content, just as a user's browser does. Blocking these files prevents Google from properly evaluating your pages. Only block directories and file types that have no SEO value — like /admin/, /tmp/, and internal API endpoints.

Question 8

Is robots.txt a security tool?

Accepted Answer

Explicitly no. robots.txt is public — anyone can view it by visiting yourdomain.com/robots.txt. Disallowing a directory doesn't prevent determined scrapers or malicious bots from accessing it. For actual security, use authentication, IP allowlists, and server-level access controls. robots.txt only provides instructions to well-behaved crawlers.

Robots.txt Generator

The File That Tells Crawlers Where They're Welcome

The Crawl Budget Problem

What robots.txt Cannot Do

Paths That Commonly Need Disallow Rules

Deploying Your robots.txt

Frequently Asked Questions