If you want to optimize your website for search engines, you need to pay attention to two important files: robots.txt and sitemaps. These files help you control how search engines crawl and index your site, and how they display your pages in the search results. In this article, you will learn how to use robots.txt and sitemaps for SEO, and what are the best practices to follow.
Robots.txt is a text file that you place in the root directory of your site, and it tells search engines which pages or folders they can or cannot access. You can use robots.txt to prevent search engines from crawling duplicate, low-quality, or sensitive content, or to avoid wasting your crawl budget on irrelevant pages. You can also use robots.txt to specify the location of your sitemap, which we will discuss next.
It's important to point out that Robots.txt prevents crawling—not indexing. A page or section of a site that is disallowed from crawling can still be indexed. This commonly happens when a page is linked on other sites, or even on subdomains of the same site. To prevent indexing, use the `noindex` tag or use headers. Additionally, the point about "sensitive content" is misleading. You should absolutely not use Robots.txt as a preventive measure for anything sensitive. If something should only be accessed by a select few, simple HTTP authentication via your server should be implemented at the bare minimum.
The robots.txt file is the entry gate for robots and crawlers of your site's search engines, so try to show them the correct address so that they don't waste their time and see all the sections you want on the site. The correct setting of this file has an important effect on the crawl budget, which can affect the index of the pages.
I agree with Daniel. Google crawling your admin pages is a data security issue first. Data security does impact SEO. But there are far worse things to worry about than ranking if your site isn't properly protected.
Robots.txt is the traffic cop of your website. It guides search engine crawlers on which areas to explore and which to avoid. It's located in your site's root directory and contains rules for web crawlers. To clarify, it doesn't prevent indexing; it controls crawling. So, even if a page isn't crawled, it can still be indexed if linked elsewhere. However, remember, it's not your go-to for safeguarding sensitive content. For that, implement proper security measures like HTTP authentication. Let's keep our websites both SEO-friendly and secure!
Robots.txt guides the crawlers like Google and can protect privacy of some content by telling it not to index, while Sitemaps act as a content GPS for WHAT to index and how.
A sitemap is a file that lists all the pages and resources on your site, and provides information about their structure, priority, and frequency of update. You can use a sitemap to help search engines discover and index your pages faster and more accurately, especially if your site is large, complex, or dynamic. You can also use a sitemap to provide additional information about your pages, such as images, videos, or rich snippets.
While many are familiar with XML sitemaps, which are primarily for search engines, there are other types as well: XML Sitemaps: These are structured lists of URLs that you want search engines to crawl and index. They can also contain metadata about each URL, such as when it was last updated and its importance relative to other URLs. HTML Sitemaps: Designed for human visitors, these are usually linked in the footer of websites and provide a straightforward list or outline of the pages on a site. For new websites or pages that aren't yet linked to other sites, sitemaps are especially important. Without a sitemap, new or isolated pages might remain undiscovered longer, missing out on potential search engine traffic.
Just as a book is incomplete without an index, a website is incomplete without a sitemap. It's an important part of your website as it helps the search engines to know more about your website; when search engines know more about your site, your chances of ranking higher in the search engine results page increases
The primary purpose of a sitemap is to furnish a comprehensive list of live URLs with the intention of getting them indexed by search engines. These pages are the ones we intend to display to users. For crawling and indexing, Google also assesses factors like internal linking and canonicalization. The process is driven by multiple signals, with the sitemap being just one cog in the wheel.
Just like a map helps you navigate streets, a sitemap helps search engines understand where all the pages on a website are located. So, when you create a sitemap, you're giving search engines a clear list of all the different parts of your website. This makes it easier for search engines to explore and "index" your site. Sitemaps can be created in various formats, such as XML (Extensible Markup Language) for search engines, or HTML for human visitors. - XML sitemaps are designed for search engine bots, providing information about each page's URL, last update, importance, and other metadata. - HTML sitemaps are created for users to navigate through the site more easily, offering a user-friendly list of links to different sections.
Sitemaps are easy to manage for most sites if you use a plugin like Yoast for Worpress. The plugin generates the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) file Google and other search engines use to identify the pages on a site. A site can have multiple sitemaps or just one. Yoast/Wordpress by default will group your pages and posts (blogs) into two different sitemaps referenced in a single "index" XML file. The index file is what you submit to Google. For most sites, upkeep of the sitemap file/files is not difficult with a plugin. The hardest part is remembering to check Google Search Console regularly enough to ensure it is being indexed properly. Most companies do not hire in house for that skill.
There are different ways to create robots.txt and sitemaps, depending on your site's platform, size, and complexity. You can use online tools, plugins, or generators to create these files automatically, or you can create them manually using a text editor or a code editor. The format and syntax of these files are simple and standardized, and you can find many examples and guidelines online. However, you should always test and validate your files before uploading them to your site, to avoid any errors or issues.
Use a plugin for a content management system (CMS) instead of going into the server or a file. The latter will require more technical help. We commonly use plugins like All In One SEO for Wordpress or Drupal's metatag module to generate sitemaps. However, it good to be familiar with the structure so that you can review for issues. It is the actual file that Google reads.
Creating a robots.txt file and a sitemap are important steps for managing how search engines crawl and index your website. Here's how you can create both of these files: 1. Creating a robots.txt file: The robots.txt file is used to communicate with web crawlers and tell them which parts of your website they can and cannot crawl. This file should be placed in the root directory of your website. Here's a basic example of a robots.txt file: javascript Copy code User-agent: * Disallow: /private/ Disallow: /restricted/ In this example, the User-agent: * line indicates that the rules apply to all web crawlers. The Disallow lines indicate the directories or URLs that crawlers should not access. You can add more Disallow lines as needed.
Creating a robots.txt: Make a plain text file named "robots.txt" in your website's root directory to instruct search engine bots. Use "Disallow" to block access to specific areas. Creating a sitemap: Generate an XML sitemap, upload it to your root directory, and submit it to search engines for efficient page indexing.
Honestly, it’s been 10 years since I had to create a robots.txt or sitemap manually. Most CMS based systems (Shopify, Drupal, Wordpress, Magento, Big Commerce etc, which is what 99% of people use, have built in support or compatible modules to accomplish this. For a sitemap, if your website has pages added or removed every few days, it’s simply not practical to be modifying the sitemap module. Usually, modern systems generate and update sitemaps on the fly when pages are created or removed. Robots.txt on the other hand does require some manual fine tuning from time to time, although most platforms come with default settings that are fine for most people.
Use a plugin in WordPress. I think the Yoast SEO plugin is very good it can automatically create the sitemap and robots.txt for you and it is really easy to change anything on the sitemap and robots.txt.
Once you have created your robots.txt and sitemaps, you need to upload them to your site's root directory, using FTP, cPanel, or any other method that you prefer. You should also submit your sitemap to Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, to notify them of your site's structure and content. You can also monitor the status and performance of your files using these tools, and make any changes or updates as needed.
Ideally, you should not have to do this manually. Most modern CMS' handle automated sitemap/robots.txt generation. If you're rolling out your own site with a framework or other dev-oriented workflow, a package most likely already exists that will create sitemaps automatically. Robots.txt will likely have to be manually created, though. Once your sitemap is uploaded to you Web Tools of choice, you shouldn't have to manually notify the tool. Most of them run on schedules and will crawl your sitemap periodically.
Normally, you can upload your robots.txt file to your website via FTP. This is a file that tells search engines which pages on your site they can and cannot crawl. However, most content management systems (CMS) have plugins that can help you create and manage your robots.txt file. These plugins can make it easier to create a clean and well-formatted robots.txt file, and they can also help you keep your file up-to-date as your site changes.
I slight Western bias in this article by only mentioning Google & Bing. Bing and Google are not the main organic traffic drivers for every websites. Yandex and Baidu have very large market share in Russia and China. Make sure to submit your sitemap to Yandex and/or Baidu if you cater to Russia or China.
To upload a robots.txt and sitemap to your website: Robots.txt: Use an FTP (File Transfer Protocol) client or your hosting provider's file manager to connect to your website's server. Navigate to the root directory of your website. Upload the robots.txt file to this root directory. Sitemap: Similar to robots.txt, use an FTP client or file manager to access your server. Upload the sitemap.xml file to the root directory of your website. Once these files are uploaded, search engines will automatically detect and use them for crawling and indexing your website
Optimizing your robots.txt and sitemaps for SEO requires following some best practices and recommendations. Use robots.txt to block pages or folders that you don't want search engines to crawl or index, but avoid blocking pages that are important for navigation or user experience. In sitemaps, include only the pages that you want search engines to crawl and index, and exclude duplicate, low-quality, or irrelevant pages. You should also use Disallow and Allow directives in robots.txt to specify which pages or folders you want to block or allow for specific search engines or user agents. Furthermore, loc, lastmod, changefreq, and priority tags in sitemaps provide information about the location, last modification date, change frequency, and priority of your pages. Additionally, if your site has more than 50,000 pages or more than 50 MB in size, use sitemap index files in sitemaps to group multiple sitemaps into one file. Lastly, if your site has multiple versions for different languages or countries, use hreflang tags in sitemaps to indicate the language and region of your pages.
Use Google robots.txt Tester or Merkle's robots.txt Validator and Testing Tool to test if your commands are valid before you update your robots.txt
Keep your robots.txt file up-to-date. As you add new pages to your website, make sure to add them to your robots.txt file. Use the correct format for your sitemap, XML sitemaps should be formatted according to the Google Sitemap XML Schema. HTML sitemaps should be formatted according to the HTML Sitemap Specification.
I think this article is great. It is important to regularly check your robots.txt file. There are numerous excellent SEO plugins available. However, sometimes these plugins can cause issues with the robots.txt file, resulting in unintentional blocking of certain folders or pages.
Just to point out you might want to use multiple site maps even if you don’t hit the URL limit for tracking different things. Google’s own example is if you had an auction site you might have a daily sitemap with new auction offers, then a weekly sitemap with less time-sensitive URLs.
I'd like to share a few straightforward and crucial tips about sitemaps: - Make sure your XML Sitemap contains all the indexable and canonical versions of your important URLs (Only pages with 200 status code) - Check for URLs that are not included in your XML Sitemap but were discovered during the crawl and add them - Are there URLs found solely in your XML Sitemap but not during the crawl? Or, have you discovered URLs that are only linked to from URLs in the Sitemap but not found in the crawl? It's crucial to ensure that all pages you want indexed are internally linked as well. - If there are URLs in your XML Sitemap that are non-indexable, it's essential to remove them or fix their indexability.
To ensure your robots.txt and sitemaps are working properly and effectively, you should use a variety of tools and methods. Google Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools can inspect your files, show you how search engines crawl and index your site, and point out any errors or warnings. Additionally, online tools such as robots.txt tester, sitemap validator, or SEO analyzer can test and verify your files, as well as provide suggestions for improvement. Browser extensions like SEOquake, MozBar, or SEO Minion can view and analyze your files in comparison to your competitors. Finally, site audit tools such as Screaming Frog, Sitebulb, or Ahrefs can crawl and audit your site to detect any issues or opportunities related to your files.
The easiest way to keep this up to date is to know your site's architecture well. Start by conducting a content audit and documenting your pages in a spreadsheet. You can download or copy/paste your sitemap XML to start and verify the pages still exist while also noting which pages need to be added. Depending on the size of the site and your time, you may also want to build a spreadsheet or buy a tool that combines different pieces of data so you do not have to do it all by hand. Once you have done your audit and cleaned up your content, upkeep of the sitemap is just a recurring task (monthly or weekly). For Robots.txt, this you should not have to touch too often unless you are redoing your sitemap.
Periodically, you need to manually check files robots.txt and sitemap.xml. ?? I mean, make sure they're all right. This is the case, for example, if your sitemaps are automatically generated. In fact, this is one of the first things we check on websites that come to us: we check for the existence of robots.txt and sitemap.xml, and also looking for errors in their work.
For Robots.txt: i) The robots.txt file can control crawling but not indexing. For eg. if a page is disallowed in the robots.txt file, it might get indexed. So, if you don't want a page to be indexed, instead of adding it to the robots.txt file add the noindex tag. ii) Adding a page as disallowed in the robots.txt file plus adding the noindex meta tag to the same page is not a good practice. Noindex meta tag doesn't work when the page is disallowed in robots.txt file. For Sitemap: i) Make it a habit of checking the sitemap regularly to make sure only 200 HTTPS status URLs are there.
Okay, I think, as an SEO specialist, we have a basic understanding of these concepts. However, what's crucial and what I'd like to highlight regarding the connection between these two aspects. We can introduce any number of sitemaps we have in the robots.txt file, enabling us to provide a clear path for Google crawlers to better crawl our site.
Be sure to protect login pages and security related pages from indexing with robots.txt. You don't want those pages to be in search engine index. It is a very good idea to include sitemap in your robot.txt too. This being said, robot.txt and sitemaps does not directly contribute to SERP.
when optimizing your website for SEO, remember that robots.txt acts as the gatekeeper, ensuring search engines follow your rules, while sitemaps act as the friendly tour guides, showing search engines the best routes to explore your site's treasures. Balancing the two effectively can significantly boost your website's search engine visibility and user experience
The Robots.txt & Sitemap are 2 essential components of crawling optimization, having the right directive's or removing the unnecessarily ones can aid in how the crawlers move on your site. For the sitemap it's imperative to make sure it doesn't include incorrect or orphan pages yet to include the most important alert to bots the pages that are most important to be crawled! Any error with robots files may prevent crawling and hinder indexation.