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Where do I find out how /robots.txt files work?

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You can read the whole standard specification but the basic concept is simple: by writing a structured text file you can indicate to robots that certain parts of your server are off-limits to some or all robots. It is best explained with an example:

# /robots.txt file for http://webcrawler.com/
# mail webmaster@webcrawler.com for constructive criticism

User-agent: webcrawler
Disallow:

User-agent: lycra
Disallow: /

User-agent: *
Disallow: /tmp
Disallow: /logs

The first two lines, starting with '#', specify a comment

The first paragraph specifies that the robot called 'webcrawler' has nothing disallowed: it may go anywhere.

The second paragraph indicates that the robot called 'lycra' has all relative URLs starting with '/' disallowed. Because all relative URL's on a server start with '/', this means the entire site is closed off.

The third paragraph indicates that all other robots should not visit URLs starting with /tmp or /log. Note the '*' is a special token, meaning "any other User-agent"; you cannot use wildcard patterns or regular expressions in either User-agent or Disallow lines.

Two common errors:

  • Wildcards are _not_ supported: instead of 'Disallow: /tmp/*' just say 'Disallow: /tmp/'.
  • You shouldn't put more than one path on a Disallow line (this may change in a future version of the spec)
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