Free Robots.txt Generator

Create a clean, customizable robots.txt file for your website in seconds. Configure crawler access rules, add sitemap information, and download.

Configuration

Disallow Rules (Block Access)
Allow Rules (Grant Access)

Enter the absolute URL to your XML sitemap.

Crawl-delay is not supported consistently by all major search engines (e.g., Google ignores it). Use it only when appropriate.

Preview

Your generated robots.txt will appear here...

What Is a Robots.txt File?

A robots.txt file is a simple plain text file placed at the root of a website that tells search engine crawlers (like Googlebot) which pages or files they can or cannot request from your site. It is part of the Robots Exclusion Protocol (REP), a web standard used to manage crawler traffic.

How Does Robots.txt Work?

Before an automated web crawler visits pages on your site, it first checks for a robots.txt file at yourdomain.com/robots.txt.

  1. The crawler reads the applicable rules defined for its specific User-agent.
  2. It follows the supported directives (Allow / Disallow).
  3. It crawls the allowed URLs, subject to your server's performance and crawl budget.

⚠️ Important SEO Warning

Robots.txt is primarily a crawler-access control mechanism. Disallowing a URL does not guarantee that the URL will never appear in search results (if linked from elsewhere), and robots.txt should never be treated as a replacement for authentication, password protection, or security controls.

Robots.txt Syntax Explained

  • User-agent: Specifies which web crawler the rules apply to (e.g., * for all, Googlebot for Google).
  • Disallow: Tells the specified user-agent not to crawl the given URL path.
  • Allow: Tells the user-agent that it can access a specific URL or subdirectory, even if the parent directory is disallowed.
  • Sitemap: Points the crawler to your XML sitemap, helping them discover your pages faster.

Robots.txt Best Practices

  • Keep syntax simple and read from top to bottom.
  • Test carefully before deploying using a robots.txt checker.
  • Avoid accidentally blocking important resources like CSS and JavaScript files (Google needs these to render your page properly).
  • Always use absolute URLs for the Sitemap directive.
  • Ensure the file is uploaded strictly to the root of your domain.