Control What Search Engines Can and Cannot Crawl on Your Site
Your robots.txt file is the first thing Googlebot reads. A misconfigured one can block your best content or waste crawl budget on pages that should not be indexed.
of content gets no traffic from Google -- and robots.txt misconfiguration is one of the most common (and most preventable) reasons pages fail to get indexed
Ahrefs, 2023
Robots.txt Configuration
What's Included
Everything you get with our Robots.txt Configuration
Robots.txt Audit
Complete analysis of current directives against your actual site structure to identify blocked important pages, missing restrictions, and directive conflicts
Strategic Configuration
Rewritten robots.txt with user-agent-specific directives, crawl-delay settings where appropriate, and sitemap references aligned with your indexation strategy
Testing & Monitoring
Validation using Google's robots.txt tester, Search Console URL inspection, and ongoing monitoring to ensure configuration remains correct as your site structure evolves
Our Robots.txt Configuration Process
Current Directive Audit
We analyze your existing robots.txt against your full site structure to identify every directive, what it blocks, and whether that blocking is intentional and appropriate. We cross-reference with Search Console coverage reports to find pages blocked in error.
Crawl Access Strategy
We define a crawl access strategy: which URL paths should be allowed, which should be disallowed, which need user-agent-specific rules, and how robots.txt coordinates with your meta robots and canonical tag strategy.
Configuration & Testing
The new robots.txt is written, tested with Google's robots.txt tester for every critical URL, and validated against your sitemap to ensure no conflicts. We verify that Googlebot can access all intended pages before deploying.
Deployment & Monitoring
After deployment, we monitor Search Console coverage for any changes in crawl access, track indexation shifts, and update robots.txt as your site structure evolves through redesigns, migrations, or new content sections.
Key Benefits
Prevent accidental blocking of important content
One wrong line in robots.txt can deindex entire sections of your site. Our audit catches overly broad disallow rules, conflicting directives, and inherited restrictions from CMS defaults that may be blocking pages you need ranked.
Reduce crawl waste on low-value URLs
Admin panels, login pages, internal search results, and parameter-heavy URLs consume crawl budget without contributing to organic visibility. Strategic robots.txt directives redirect that budget toward pages that drive traffic and revenue.
Coordinate crawl management across all signals
Robots.txt works best as part of a unified crawl strategy alongside meta robots tags, canonical URLs, and XML sitemaps. We ensure all four systems work together without conflicts -- no cases where robots.txt blocks a page that your sitemap includes.
Research & Evidence
Backed by industry research and proven results
Page Experience Signals
Google confirmed page experience signals contribute to ranking, and efficient crawl management through robots.txt helps ensure Googlebot can access and assess all rankable pages
Google (2021)
Search Scale
With 8.5 billion daily searches, Google must allocate crawl resources efficiently -- robots.txt is the first signal it reads when deciding how to crawl your site
Google (2024)
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