If you’d like to control the content that search engine optimization robots look through your site, then you’ll need a robots.txt file.
Although it’s not necessary to have the final say on how Google evaluates your website, it could influence your SEO results. To learn more about SEO company in Bangalore you click once. This can influence your decisions by allowing you to control how Google considers your site and how they view it.
So, if you’re trying to increase your crawl speed and search engine performance on Google, What can you do to make a robots.txt to optimize your SEO?
We’ll go back to the very beginning of robots.txt files and break them down:
What is Robots.Txt?
A robots.txt file is a file that informs crawlers on search engines what URLs crawlers can access within your website. It is used to ensure that your site is not overloaded with requests, but it’s not a way to keep it from Google. To save a website free of Google, block indexing using No index or secure the page with a password.
Why Is Robots.txt Important?
- The majority of websites don’t require a robots.txt file.
- It’s because Google will usually locate and index all the crucial pages on your website.
- They’ll be unable to include pages which aren’t vital or duplicate versions of pages.
There are three primary reasons you should consider using the robots.txt file.
Block non-public pages: Sometimes, you have pages on your website that you do not want to be indexed. For example, you may have an interim version of an existing page. Or a login page. The pages have to be there.
However, it would help if you didn’t have visitors from outside to land on these pages. This is why you’d use robots.txt to stop these websites from crawling on search engines and bots.
Maximize Crawl Budget If you’re having trouble getting your pages indexed, you may be suffering from a Crawl Budget issue. By blocking irrelevant pages through robots.txt, Googlebot can spend more than your crawl budget on those pages that are important.
What is a robot’s text document to be used to do?
This robots.txt document tells crawlers and robots the URLs they shouldn’t go to on your site. It is crucial to assist users to avoid crawling poor-quality pages or getting trapped in crawl traps, where many URLs could be created, like the calendar section that makes an entirely new URL each day of the week.
As Google clarifies within their robots.txt specification guide, the format for the file should be plain text encoded using UTF-8. The files’ records (or lines) are separated by either CR, CR/LF or.
It is essential to be aware of the dimensions of the robots.txt file since search engines each has their size limitations. The maximum size of a robots.txt file for Google is 500KB.
Where to Find the Robots.Txt File?
The robots.txt file is within the root directory of your website. To access the file, you must open your FTP cPanel and search for your site’s public html directory.
There’s nothing special about these files, which means they won’t be as significant. You can expect to see only a few hundred bytes, at minimum.
After you’ve got the file open within your editor for text, you’ll be able to see the details of an outline of the sitemap, as well as the words “User-Agent,” “allow,” and “disallow” written up.
User-Agent Directive
Are you able to see what’s in the “user-agent” portion? This distinguishes a bot from the rest by calling it by its name.
If you’re trying to instruct Google’s crawlers what you want them to do on your website, start by saying “User-agent: Googlebot.”
However, the more precise you can be, the more accurate you are. It’s not uncommon to have multiple directives. Therefore, you must call out each bot’s name whenever needed.
Pro Tips: Most search engines utilize multiple bots. A little research will reveal the most popular bots to focus on.
Host Directive
This feature is currently exclusively supported by Yandex, although you might be able to see assertions that Google is also a supporter.
By following this directive, you can determine if you would like to display the web address. Before your URL on your site with a statement like this:
Host:example.com
We’re able to verify that Yandex has this capability. However, we don’t recommend that you trust it immensely.
Disallow Directive
The second line of an area is Disallow. It lets you define the locations of your website that should not be spiders. If you do not leave the disallow field empty, it tells bots that this is a free-for-all and they’re free to browse as they like.
What are the times when you shouldn’t use robots.txt?
The robots.txt file can be a valuable tool when utilized correctly; however, sometimes, it’s not the ideal option. Here are a few examples of situations where you shouldn’t make use of robots.txt to regulate crawling
Blocking Javascript/CSS
Search engines should be capable of accessing your website’s resources to render your pages correctly, which is an essential element of maintaining good search engine rankings. However, javaScript files that dramatically alter the user experience and are not allowed to crawl by search engines can result in algorithmic or manual sanctions.
For instance, if, for example, you display an advertisement interspersed or redirect users using JavaScript that search engines can’t access, it may be considered to be cloaking, and the ranking of your content could be altered to reflect this.
Blocking URL parameters
You can use robots.txt to stop URLs with specific parameters. However, it’s not always the most effective option. It’s better to manage these issues in the Google Search console as there are more options for specific parameters to relay preferred crawling methods to Google.
You can also put the data as a URL fragment ( /page#sort=price) to ensure that search engines do not search for this. If the URL parameter has to be used, the URL’s links may include the rel=nofollow property to stop crawlers from attempting to access the information.
Blocking URLs that have backlinks
The disallowance of URLs in the robots.txt stops the transfer of link equity to the site. That means that when search engines are not able to read links from other websites because the destination URL is not allowed and your site does not be able to gain the authority these hyperlinks are passing through and consequently, it might not rank as high all-around.
Getting indexed pages deindexed
Disallow doesn’t result in the deindexing of pages; however, even when the URL is blocked and search engines haven’t visited the site, disallowed pages may still be indexed. This is because the indexing and crawling processes are generally distinct.
Making rules that ignore social network crawlers
If you do not want search engines to crawl or index your pages, you might require social media to be able to connect to these pages, so the snippets of the carrier of information can be created. For instance, Facebook will attempt to go to every website published on their network to provide the appropriate fragment. Be aware of this when making robots.txt rules.
Blocking access to development or staging websites
Utilizing the robots.txt to block a complete staging site is not the best way. Google recommends not indexing pages but allowing them to be crawled. In general, it’s best to make the site inaccessible to the outside world.
Conclusion
The robots.txt lets you block robots from accessing certain areas of your site, mainly when a particular area of your site is considered private, or your content is not necessary for the eyes of search engines. Therefore, robots.txt is vital for controlling what index is used on your web pages. To more help in SEO Company in Mumbai must click.
