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Ivan Jarkov
Ivan Jarkov

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How to Properly Configure robots.txt and Why It Matters for SEO

#google #tutorial #webdev

When it comes to SEO, many developers focus on page speed, structured data, and link building. But one small text file, often overlooked, can have a huge impact on how search engines see your site: robots.txt.

This file lives at the root of your domain (puzzlefree.game/robots.txt) and tells search engine crawlers what they can and cannot index. A misconfigured robots.txt can either block important pages or accidentally expose areas you never wanted indexed.

Why robots.txt Is Important

  • Controls crawl budget: Large websites can waste Googlebot’s crawl resources on duplicate or irrelevant pages (e.g., filters, internal search). A good robots.txt helps bots focus on what really matters.
  • Protects sensitive sections: While robots.txt is not a security tool, it can reduce indexing of areas like /admin/ or /temp/.
  • Supports SEO strategy: By guiding crawlers, you ensure the right pages rank, while low-value or duplicate content is ignored.

Basic Structure of robots.txt

Here’s the syntax you’ll use most often:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /private/
Allow: /public/
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  • User-agent: defines which bots the rule applies to (e.g., Googlebot, Bingbot). Use * for all.
  • Disallow: blocks access to a path.
  • Allow: grants access, even inside a blocked directory.

Common Examples

1. Block all crawlers from admin pages 

User-agent: *
Disallow: /admin/
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2. Allow everything except internal search results 

User-agent: *
Disallow: /search
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3. Block one crawler, allow others 

User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /no-google/

User-agent: *
Allow: /
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Mistakes to Avoid

  • ❌ Blocking the entire site 
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
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This tells all bots not to crawl anything. Some developers accidentally push staging robots.txt to production — and rankings disappear overnight.

  • ❌ Using robots.txt as a security measure
    If you put /secret/ in your robots.txt, everyone (including bad actors) can see it. Use authentication, not robots.txt, for sensitive data.

  • ❌ Forgetting sitemaps

Sitemap: https://puzzlefree.game/sitemap.xml
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Best Practices

✅ Keep it simple — don’t overcomplicate with unnecessary rules.
✅ Always test your robots.txt in Google Search Console before deploying.
✅ Combine robots.txt with meta robots tags or noindex headers for fine control.
✅ Use Sitemap: to guide crawlers toward your best pages.

Final Thoughts

Your robots.txt is often the first file search engines see. Treat it as part of your SEO toolkit, not just a developer’s afterthought. A clean, intentional configuration ensures that crawlers spend their time on the content you actually want to rank.

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