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Check explainer

robots.txt

A misconfigured robots.txt makes the site invisible to Google.

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What we check

Checks robots.txt reachability and whether it blocks everything.

Why it matters

A misconfigured robots.txt makes the site invisible to Google.

Common causes

  • A "Disallow: /" from the staging phase went live with the site.
  • The file returns an error or redirect, some crawlers treat that as a block.
  • The sitemap reference is missing or points to a dead URL.

How to fix it

robots.txt at the web root: "User-agent: *" + "Allow: /" + "Sitemap: <URL>".

  • Q01
    What does a failing robots.txt finding mean?

    A misconfigured robots.txt makes the site invisible to Google. robots.txt at the web root: "User-agent: *" + "Allow: /" + "Sitemap: <URL>".

  • Q02
    How do you fix robots.txt?

    robots.txt at the web root: "User-agent: *" + "Allow: /" + "Sitemap: <URL>".