Robots.txt Testing and Validation Tool

Checking your `robots.txt` file is essential to ensure that search engine crawlers are interacting with your site as intended. A misconfigured file can accidentally block important pages from being indexed, negatively affecting your website’s visibility and SEO performance. By regularly validating your `robots.txt`, you can prevent access to sensitive or irrelevant pages while making sure that search engines properly index the content you want to rank.

Using the user-agent tab at the top, select which user-agent, i.e. software, you want to check whether your URL can be accessed by, and then enter the URL you want to test in the URL section just below it.

The tool will then quickly provide the necessary checks and tell you whether the URL is accessed or not.

Apart from that, if there is an access problem in your robots.txt file, the tool will provide you with information about it.

1. Blocking Important Pages

   Issue: Accidentally blocking important pages (e.g., product pages, blog posts, or entire sections).

   Solution: Double-check disallowed paths to ensure no critical pages are blocked for search engines.

2. Allowing Access to Sensitive Areas

   Issue: Failing to block sensitive or non-public content, such as admin pages, login pages, or backend data.

   Solution: Explicitly disallow access to /admin/, /wp-admin/, or any sensitive sections that don’t need indexing.

3. Not Blocking Duplicate Content

   Issue: Search engines indexing duplicate pages, such as pagination, sorting URLs, or tag pages.

   Solution: Use robots.txt to disallow pages that cause duplication, such as URLs with query parameters.

4. Syntax Errors

   Issue: A small syntax error can render the entire file invalid. For example, using incorrect capitalization, incorrect directives, or missing spaces.

   Solution: Validate the file using tools like Google Search Console’s robots.txt tester.

5. No robots.txt File

   Issue: Not having a robots.txt file at all means search engines may crawl unnecessary parts of the website.

   Solution: Always create a robots.txt file, even if it’s just to allow all access with User-agent: * and Disallow:.

6. Overly Restrictive Blocking

   Issue: Blocking too much can result in under-indexing or poor ranking because search engines can’t access content.

   Solution: Make sure only non-essential pages are disallowed while critical content remains accessible.

7. Blocking JavaScript, CSS, or Images

   Issue: Blocking these assets can prevent search engines from rendering your site properly, affecting SEO.

   Solution: Ensure that essential assets like JavaScript, CSS, and image files are crawlable by search engines.

8. Case Sensitivity

   Issue: robots.txt is case-sensitive. For example, /Images/ is different from /images/.

   Solution: Ensure consistency in file and directory naming when specifying paths.

9. Slow Implementation Updates

   Issue: Changes in robots.txt are not immediately recognized by search engines.

   Solution: Use Google Search Console’s tool to request an update and test your changes.

10. Relying Only on robots.txt for SEO Control

    Issue: Some website owners assume robots.txt is enough for content management, but it doesn't prevent search engines from indexing URLs if they find them through links.

    Solution: Combine robots.txt with noindex meta tags for full control over what is indexed.

11. Misunderstanding Wildcards

    Issue: Misusing wildcards in robots.txt, such as using * improperly, can block unintended pages.

    Solution: Carefully use wildcards and test their effectiveness on real URLs before deploying them.

1. Using a Web Browser

   Open your preferred web browser.

   In the address bar, type the URL of the website you want to check followed by /robots.txt. For example, https://www.example.com/robots.txt.

   Press Enter. The robots.txt file will be displayed in plain text format.

2. Using a Text Editor (Locally)

   If you have access to the website's server:

   Use an FTP client (like FileZilla) or a file manager in your hosting control panel to navigate to the root directory of the website.

   Look for the robots.txt file and download it.

   Open it using any text editor (like Notepad, TextEdit, or VS Code).

3. Using Command Line (for Developers)

   If you have command-line access to the server (like SSH):

   Connect to the server using an SSH client.

   Navigate to the root directory of the website.

   Use a command like cat robots.txt or nano robots.txt to view or edit the file.

If a URL or group of URLs cannot be accessed by the user-agent of your choice due to a directive in robots.txt, you can examine the disallow directives one by one from the robots.txt in the tool output and edit your robots.txt file by specifying the disallow command containing the prefix of your URL.

For example: If your URL named example.com/blog/post/xxxx is blocked with the disallow:/blog/ directive in robots.txt, you can enter your robots.txt file and delete the /blog/ disallow directive.

The Allow directive in a robots.txt file lets web crawlers access specific files or directories, even if a broader Disallow rule blocks other parts of the site. It provides fine control by allowing certain pages to be crawled while keeping other areas restricted. For example, you can block a whole folder but still allow one file inside it to be accessed by search engines.

For Example:
Disallow:/xxx/
Allow:/xxx/yyy/

With this allow, only URLs with /yyy/ prefix in the URL after /xxx/ are allowed to be crawled from URL groups with /xxx/ prefix, which are normally closed to crawls with disallow.

The `Disallow` directive in a `robots.txt` file tells web crawlers not to access specific pages or directories on a website. It prevents certain parts of the site from being crawled or indexed by search engines.

For Example:

Disallow:/xxx/

With the use of this directive, crawlers that obey robots.txt directives understand that all URL groups containing the /xxx/ prefix are closed to crawling by the site administration and remove all URL groups containing this prefix from the crawl list.

These URLs are not crawled even if they are discovered.

Important Note:

Robots.txt directives can be bypassed by crawlers in various situations.