Bots are automated computer programs which interact with websites and applications. A web crawler bot gets into web pages and index the content to show up in search engine results. Robots.txt file is the instruction code for bots to manage web crawling. Most of the websites have robots.txt file in their source files.
Robots.txt files are used for managing web traffic to websites. But do not use it to hide your web pages from Google search results. You can use robots.txt file to avoid the videos, images or audio files to appear in search results. You can also use this file type to block resource files which are not important. Robots.txt has a significant place in SEO, which we will share about our thoughts on it as the SEO experts in Qatar.
Working of a robots.txt file
The robots.txt file does not have an HTML code and it is hosted on the web server as normal. This can be viewed using a complete URL for the homepage with /robots.txt in the end (e.g. https://www.digitallinkspro.qa/robots.txt). The crawler bots can find this file on a website so fast even before a user finds it. Moreover, every sub domain needs its own robots.txt file.
Bots can be good or bad based on their functions. Good bots finds the robots.txt file and follows the instructions at the initial stage itself. They follow the most specific instruction set of robots.txt file and choose more granular commands at times of contradictions on instructions. Where as bad bots ignore the file and process to find the forbidden web pages.
Protocols used in robots.txt file
The robots.txt file uses many protocols like Robots Exclusion Protocol, Sitemaps protocol etc. Robots exclusion protocol asks bots to avoid certain
web pages and resources, whereas Sitemaps protocol finds the pages to crawl for a web crawler. This robot inclusion protocol helps crawlers to not leave any important pages.
How to use Robots.txt files?
Understand what a ‘syntax’ in which you can create the Robots.txt file and then,
- Define the user- agent or which robot you are referring to; such as Google, Yahoo etc.
- Disallow the pages or any section which you want to block by stating the URL path there.
- If you would like to unblock a URL path, enter the URL subdirectory path there.
Setting up a Robots.txt file for your website
In order to set up a robots.txt file in your website, you need to,
- Write your directives into a text file at first.
- Then, using Cpanel, upload the text file to your website’s directory
- Find whether your live file came right after the ‘.com/’ in the URL. Otherwise web crawlers won’t look at it or follow the commands. (https://example.org/robot.txt.)
- Make sure that your sub domains have their own robots.txt files.
Moreover you can test your robots.txt file using Google’s free robots.txt tester tool. You can access the tool from Google Search Console>Crawl> Robots.txt Tester. Get the directions from the SEO experts in Qatar.
Robots.txt for better SEO performance
A robots.txt file is important to block or allow certain pages from search engines. Blocking sensitive information like sensitive data in the directory, blocking low quality pages that can rank you down, blocking duplicate contents needs robots.txt formats. Therefore robots.txt file has importance in SEO and when dealing with it be careful in making changes to this file type as it can make big changes in your website page search results. Make sure robots.txt file is residing in the root of tour website. It is valid only for the full domain it resides on with protocol. Also don’t use crawl- delay directive for search engines always.
Now you know the impact of robots.txt file in SEO; so putting robots.txt to work for better SEO is important and this reflects in your site’s traffic. Check your site to ensure a precise search engine page indexing and if not, get the best SEO services, Qatar from Digital Links. We provide various organic SEO packages to guarantee top rankings, traffic and quality service at your budget. We have the trusted name in the industry as no.1 SEO and Website Development Company in Qatar with transparent and reliable marketing service.