Robots.txt Generator
Generate a valid robots.txt file in seconds. Control search engine crawlers, protect sensitive content, and improve your website's SEO performance.
Three Steps to a Valid robots.txt File
No coding required. Select your mode, configure your rules, and generate a correctly formatted file in seconds.
Select Your Mode
Choose Standard Rules for a quick setup, Advanced Rules if you need crawl-delay settings, or Custom Edit to write or paste a robots.txt directly. All three output valid, ready-to-upload files.
Configure Your Rules
Select your user-agent (Googlebot, all bots, etc.), add allow and disallow paths one at a time, and optionally include your sitemap URL. The file overview updates live as you build.
Generate, Copy & Upload
Click Generate, review the formatted output, then copy it to clipboard. Paste the content into a file named robots.txt and upload it to your website root directory.
The Six Core robots.txt Directives
Each directive in your robots.txt file serves a specific purpose. Understanding them helps you craft precise crawl control instructions.
User-agent
Specifies which crawler the following rules apply to. Use * to target all bots, or a specific name like Googlebot for Google's crawler only.
Allow
Explicitly permits crawling of a specific path, even within a disallowed directory. Useful for whitelisting key assets inside otherwise blocked folders.
Disallow
Tells crawlers not to access a specific path. A blank Disallow means allow everything. Disallow: / blocks the entire site from being crawled.
Sitemap
Points search engines directly to your XML sitemap file. This is not a crawling rule — it is a discovery aid that speeds up indexing of your most important pages.
Crawl-delay
Requests that a crawler waits N seconds between successive requests to your server. Helps prevent server overload from aggressive bots. Not honored by Googlebot.
Comments
Lines starting with # are comments — ignored by all crawlers. Use them to document your file, explain why a path is blocked, or add timestamps.
robots.txt Templates for Common Use Cases
Copy any of these templates as a starting point and adjust paths to match your website's structure.
Disallow: /admin/
Disallow: /wp-login.php
Disallow: /private/
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml
Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /?sort=
Disallow: /?filter=
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml
Disallow: /
User-agent: CCBot
Disallow: /
User-agent: *
Allow: /
Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml
robots.txt for Every Website Type
From bloggers to enterprise developers, every website owner benefits from a correctly configured robots.txt file.
SEO Specialists
- Define crawl behavior for large sites
- Protect crawl budget for priority pages
- Block duplicate URL parameters
- Include sitemap for faster indexing
Web Developers
- Block staging and test environments
- Protect dev or preview URLs
- Manage multiple bot rules per site
- Generate files instantly for clients
Ecommerce Stores
- Disallow cart and checkout pages
- Block session and filter parameters
- Prevent duplicate product URL indexing
- Speed up product page crawling
Bloggers & Content Sites
- Block admin and login pages
- Exclude tag and archive pages
- Link sitemap for content discovery
- Protect draft or private posts
Agencies & Freelancers
- Generate robots files for client sites
- Quick setup for new website launches
- Standardize rules across projects
- Auditing & correcting existing files
Students & Learners
- Understand search engine crawl behavior
- Learn robots.txt syntax hands-on
- Experiment with allow/disallow rules
- Prepare for SEO certification exams
Robots.txt vs XML Sitemap — and When to Use Both
These two SEO files serve different but complementary purposes. Most websites need both to fully control how search engines discover and index their content.
| Feature | 🤖 Robots.txt Generator | 🗺️ XML Sitemap Generator |
|---|---|---|
| Primary purpose | Control what to crawl | Guide what to index |
| Tells crawlers what to skip | ✓ Yes — core function | ✗ No |
| Tells crawlers what to index | ✗ Not directly | ✓ Yes — core function |
| Saves crawl budget | ✓ Yes — by blocking low-value paths | ~ Indirectly |
| Improves content discovery | ~ Indirectly via Allow | ✓ Yes — lists all URLs |
| Protects sensitive content from bots | ✓ Yes | ✗ No |
| Can reference the other file | ✓ robots.txt links to sitemap | — No equivalent |
| Required for every website | Highly recommended | Highly recommended |
💡 Best practice: Use both together. Generate your robots.txt here, add your sitemap URL inside it, then use the XML Sitemap Generator to build a complete sitemap for maximum SEO control.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about robots.txt files and this free generator tool.
https://example.com/robots.txt) that sends instructions to search engine crawlers. It tells bots like Googlebot, Bingbot, and others which pages or directories to crawl and which to skip. Without it, search engines crawl everything they can find — including pages you may not want indexed, like login pages, staging areas, cart pages, and admin panels.
noindex meta tag combined with robots.txt. Think of robots.txt as a polite request — well-behaved crawlers follow it, but it is not a security mechanism.
User-agent: * to target all bots, you can define rules for a specific crawler:
- Use
User-agent: Googlebotfor Google's crawler only - Use
User-agent: Bingbotfor Microsoft Bing - Use
User-agent: GPTBotto block OpenAI's AI training crawler - Stack multiple user-agent blocks with different rules in one file
Disallow rules to block irrelevant paths saves crawl budget and directs crawlers to your highest-value content — improving indexing efficiency and, indirectly, SEO rankings.
- Save the generated text as
robots.txt(no other extension) - Upload it via FTP, cPanel File Manager, or your CMS file manager
- Verify it is accessible at
https://yourdomain.com/robots.txt - Test it using Google Search Console's robots.txt Tester tool
/subfolder/robots.txt has no effect.
Sitemap: directive to your robots.txt file ensures that any crawler reading it immediately knows the location of your XML sitemap. This speeds up discovery of your pages and is especially helpful for newly published content. You can also submit your sitemap directly in Google Search Console for even faster results. Use both methods together for maximum coverage.