Robots.txt

The standard was proposed by Martijn Koster,{{cite web |url=http://www.greenhills.co.uk/historical.html |title=Historical |website=Greenhills.co.uk |access-date=2017-03-03 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170403152037/http://www.greenhills.co.uk/historical.html |archive-date=2017-04-03 |url-status=live }}{{cite web |title=Maintaining Distributed Hypertext Infostructures: Welcome to MOMspider's Web |first=Roy |last=Fielding |work=First International Conference on the World Wide Web |year=1994 |place=Geneva |url=http://www94.web.cern.ch/WWW94/PapersWWW94/fielding.ps |access-date=September 25, 2013 |format=PostScript |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130927093658/http://www94.web.cern.ch/WWW94/PapersWWW94/fielding.ps |archive-date=2013-09-27 |url-status=live }} when working for Nexor{{cite web |url=http://www.robotstxt.org/orig.html#status |title=The Web Robots Pages |publisher=Robotstxt.org |date=1994-06-30 |access-date=2013-12-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140112090633/http://www.robotstxt.org/orig.html#status |archive-date=2014-01-12 |url-status=live }} in February 1994{{cite web|title=Important: Spiders, Robots and Web Wanderers |first=Martijn |last=Koster |work=www-talk mailing list |date=25 February 1994 |url=http://inkdroid.org/tmp/www-talk/4113.html |format=Hypermail archived message |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131029200350/http://inkdroid.org/tmp/www-talk/4113.html |archive-date=October 29, 2013 }} on the www-talk mailing list, the main communication channel for WWW-related activities at the time. Charles Stross claims to have provoked Koster to suggest robots.txt, after he wrote a badly behaved web crawler that inadvertently caused a denial-of-service attack on Koster's server.{{cite web |url=http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/06/how_i_got_here_in_the_end_part_3.html |title=How I got here in the end, part five: "things can only get better!" |work=Charlie's Diary |date=19 June 2006 |access-date=19 April 2014 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131125220913/http://www.antipope.org/charlie/blog-static/2009/06/how_i_got_here_in_the_end_part_3.html |archive-date=2013-11-25 |url-status=live }}

The standard, initially RobotsNotWanted.txt, allowed web developers to specify which bots should not access their website or which pages bots should not access. The internet was small enough in 1994 to maintain a complete list of all bots; server overload was a primary concern. By June 1994 it had become a de facto standard;{{cite web|url=https://www.theverge.com/24067997/robots-txt-ai-text-file-web-crawlers-spiders|title=The text file that runs the internet|work=The Verge|last=Pierce|first=David|date=14 February 2024|accessdate=16 March 2024}} most complied, including those operated by search engines such as WebCrawler, Lycos, and AltaVista.{{cite web |title=Robots.txt Celebrates 20 Years Of Blocking Search Engines |author=Barry Schwartz |work=Search Engine Land |date=30 June 2014 |access-date=2015-11-19 |url=http://searchengineland.com/robots-txt-celebrates-20-years-blocking-search-engines-195479 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150907000430/http://searchengineland.com/robots-txt-celebrates-20-years-blocking-search-engines-195479 |archive-date=2015-09-07 |url-status=live }}

On July 1, 2019, Google announced the proposal of the Robots Exclusion Protocol as an official standard under Internet Engineering Task Force.{{Cite web|url=https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2019/07/rep-id.html|title=Formalizing the Robots Exclusion Protocol Specification|website=Official Google Webmaster Central Blog|language=en|access-date=2019-07-10|archive-date=2019-07-10|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190710060436/https://webmasters.googleblog.com/2019/07/rep-id.html|url-status=live}} A proposed standard{{Ref RFC|9309}} was published in September 2022 as RFC 9309.

When a site owner wishes to give instructions to web robots they place a text file called {{mono|robots.txt}} in the root of the web site hierarchy (e.g. {{mono|https://www.example.com/robots.txt}}). This text file contains the instructions in a specific format (see examples below). Robots that choose to follow the instructions try to fetch this file and read the instructions before fetching any other file from the website. If this file does not exist, web robots assume that the website owner does not wish to place any limitations on crawling the entire site.

A robots.txt file contains instructions for bots indicating which web pages they can and cannot access. Robots.txt files are particularly important for web crawlers from search engines such as Google.

A robots.txt file on a website will function as a request that specified robots ignore specified files or directories when crawling a site. This might be, for example, out of a preference for privacy from search engine results, or the belief that the content of the selected directories might be misleading or irrelevant to the categorization of the site as a whole, or out of a desire that an application only operates on certain data. Links to pages listed in robots.txt can still appear in search results if they are linked to from a page that is crawled.{{cite web |url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBdEwpRQRD0#t=196s |title=Uncrawled URLs in search results |publisher=YouTube |date=Oct 5, 2009 |access-date=2013-12-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140106222500/http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBdEwpRQRD0#t=196s |archive-date=2014-01-06 |url-status=live }}

A robots.txt file covers one origin. For websites with multiple subdomains, each subdomain must have its own robots.txt file. If {{mono|example.com}} had a robots.txt file but {{mono|a.example.com}} did not, the rules that would apply for {{mono|example.com}} would not apply to {{mono|a.example.com}}. In addition, each protocol and port needs its own robots.txt file; {{mono|http://example.com/robots.txt}} does not apply to pages under {{mono|http://example.com:8080/}} or {{mono|https://example.com/}}.

The robots.txt protocol is widely complied with by bot operators.

Some major search engines following this standard include Ask,{{cite web |title=About Ask.com: Webmasters |url=http://about.ask.com/docs/about/webmasters.shtml |website=About.ask.com |access-date=16 February 2013 |archive-date=27 January 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130127134025/http://about.ask.com/docs/about/webmasters.shtml |url-status=live }} AOL,{{cite web |title=About AOL Search |url=http://search.aol.com/aol/about |website=Search.aol.com |access-date=16 February 2013 |archive-date=13 December 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20121213134546/http://search.aol.com/aol/about |url-status=dead }} Baidu,{{cite web |title=Baiduspider |url=http://www.baidu.com/search/spider_english.html |website=Baidu.com |access-date=16 February 2013 |archive-date=6 August 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130806131031/http://www.baidu.com/search/spider_english.html |url-status=live }} Bing,{{cite web|url=https://blogs.bing.com/webmaster/2008/06/03/robots-exclusion-protocol-joining-together-to-provide-better-documentation/|title=Robots Exclusion Protocol: joining together to provide better documentation|website=Blogs.bing.com|date=3 June 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140818025412/http://blogs.bing.com/webmaster/2008/06/03/robots-exclusion-protocol-joining-together-to-provide-better-documentation/|archive-date=2014-08-18|url-status=live|access-date=16 February 2013}} DuckDuckGo,{{cite web|url=https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckbot|website=DuckDuckGo.com|title=DuckDuckGo Bot|access-date=25 April 2017|archive-date=16 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170216043103/https://duckduckgo.com/duckduckbot|url-status=live}} Kagi,{{cite web|url=https://kagi.com/bot|website=Kagi Search|title=Kagi Search KagiBot|access-date=20 November 2024|archive-date=12 April 2024|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240412192855/https://kagi.com/bot|url-status=live}} Google,{{cite web |url=https://developers.google.com/webmasters/control-crawl-index/docs/robots_txt |title=Webmasters: Robots.txt Specifications |work=Google Developers |access-date=16 February 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130115214137/https://developers.google.com/webmasters/control-crawl-index/docs/robots_txt |archive-date=2013-01-15 |url-status=live }} Yahoo!,{{cite web |url=http://help.yahoo.com/kb/index?page=content&y=PROD_SRCH&locale=en_US&id=SLN2217&impressions=true |title=Submitting your website to Yahoo! Search |access-date=16 February 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130121035801/http://help.yahoo.com/kb/index?page=content&y=PROD_SRCH&locale=en_US&id=SLN2217&impressions=true |archive-date=2013-01-21 |url-status=live }} and Yandex.{{cite web |url=http://help.yandex.com/webmaster/?id=1113851 |title=Using robots.txt |website=Help.yandex.com |access-date=16 February 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130125040017/http://help.yandex.com/webmaster/?id=1113851 |archive-date=2013-01-25 |url-status=live }}

Some web archiving projects ignore robots.txt. Archive Team uses the file to discover more links, such as sitemaps.{{cite web |title=ArchiveBot: Bad behavior |url=https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/ArchiveBot#Bad_behavior |website=wiki.archiveteam.org |publisher=Archive Team |access-date=10 October 2022 |archive-date=10 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221010034711/https://wiki.archiveteam.org/index.php/ArchiveBot#Bad_behavior |url-status=live }} Co-founder Jason Scott said that "unchecked, and left alone, the robots.txt file ensures no mirroring or reference for items that may have general use and meaning beyond the website's context."{{cite web|url=http://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Robots.txt|publisher=Archive Team|title=Robots.txt is a suicide note|author=Jason Scott|access-date=18 February 2017|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170218044527/http://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Robots.txt|archive-date=2017-02-18|url-status=live|author-link=Jason Scott}} In 2017, the Internet Archive announced that it would stop complying with robots.txt directives.{{Cite web|url=https://blog.archive.org/2017/04/17/robots-txt-meant-for-search-engines-dont-work-well-for-web-archives/|title=Robots.txt meant for search engines don't work well for web archives {{!}} Internet Archive Blogs|website=blog.archive.org|date=17 April 2017|language=en-US|access-date=2018-12-01|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181204130028/http://blog.archive.org/2017/04/17/robots-txt-meant-for-search-engines-dont-work-well-for-web-archives/|archive-date=2018-12-04|url-status=live}} According to Digital Trends, this followed widespread use of robots.txt to remove historical sites from search engine results, and contrasted with the nonprofit's aim to archive "snapshots" of the internet as it previously existed.{{cite news |url=https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/internet-archive-robots-txt/#ixzz4gQYOqpUi |title=The Internet Archive Will Ignore Robots.txt Files to Maintain Accuracy |newspaper=Digital Trends |first=Brad |last=Jones |date=24 April 2017 |access-date=8 May 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170516130029/https://www.digitaltrends.com/computing/internet-archive-robots-txt/#ixzz4gQYOqpUi |archive-date=2017-05-16 |url-status=live }}

Starting in the 2020s, web operators began using robots.txt to deny access to bots collecting training data for generative AI. In 2023, Originality.AI found that 306 of the thousand most-visited websites blocked OpenAI's GPTBot in their robots.txt file and 85 blocked Google's Google-Extended. Many robots.txt files named GPTBot as the only bot explicitly disallowed on all pages. Denying access to GPTBot was common among news websites such as the BBC and The New York Times. In 2023, blog host Medium announced it would deny access to all artificial intelligence web crawlers as "AI companies have leached value from writers in order to spam Internet readers".

GPTBot complies with the robots.txt standard and gives advice to web operators about how to disallow it, but The Verge{{'}}s David Pierce said this only began after "training the underlying models that made it so powerful". Also, some bots are used both for search engines and artificial intelligence, and it may be impossible to block only one of these options. 404 Media reported that companies like Anthropic and Perplexity.ai circumvented robots.txt by renaming or spinning up new scrapers to replace the ones that appeared on popular blocklists.{{Cite web |last=Koebler |first=Jason |date=2024-07-29 |title=Websites are Blocking the Wrong AI Scrapers (Because AI Companies Keep Making New Ones) |url=https://www.404media.co/websites-are-blocking-the-wrong-ai-scrapers-because-ai-companies-keep-making-new-ones/ |access-date=2024-07-29 |website=404 Media}}

Despite the use of the terms allow and disallow, the protocol is purely advisory and relies on the compliance of the web robot; it cannot enforce any of what is stated in the file. {{cite web |title=Block URLs with robots.txt: Learn about robots.txt files |url=https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6062608 |access-date=2015-08-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150814013400/https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/6062608 |archive-date=2015-08-14 |url-status=live }} Malicious web robots are unlikely to honor robots.txt; some may even use the robots.txt as a guide to find disallowed links and go straight to them. While this is sometimes claimed to be a security risk,{{cite web |url=https://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/19/robotstxt/ |title=Robots.txt tells hackers the places you don't want them to look |work=The Register |access-date=August 12, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150821063759/http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/05/19/robotstxt/ |archive-date=2015-08-21 |url-status=live }} this sort of security through obscurity is discouraged by standards bodies. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) in the United States specifically recommends against this practice: "System security should not depend on the secrecy of the implementation or its components."{{cite journal |last1=Scarfone |first1=K. A. |last2=Jansen |first2=W. |last3=Tracy |first3=M. |date=July 2008 |title=Guide to General Server Security |url=http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-123/SP800-123.pdf |url-status=live |journal=National Institute of Standards and Technology |doi=10.6028/NIST.SP.800-123 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111008115412/http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/nistpubs/800-123/SP800-123.pdf |archive-date=2011-10-08 |access-date=August 12, 2015}} In the context of robots.txt files, security through obscurity is not recommended as a security technique.{{cite book |author=Sverre H. Huseby |title=Innocent Code: A Security Wake-Up Call for Web Programmers |publisher=John Wiley & Sons |year=2004 |pages=91–92 |isbn=9780470857472 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RjVjgPQsKogC&pg=PA92 |access-date=2015-08-12 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160401193437/https://books.google.com/books?id=RjVjgPQsKogC&pg=PA92 |archive-date=2016-04-01 |url-status=live }}

Many robots also pass a special user-agent to the web server when fetching content.{{cite web |url=http://www.user-agents.org/ |title=List of User-Agents (Spiders, Robots, Browser) |publisher=User-agents.org |access-date=2013-12-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140107154205/http://user-agents.org/ |archive-date=2014-01-07 |url-status=live }} A web administrator could also configure the server to automatically return failure (or pass alternative content) when it detects a connection using one of the robots.{{cite web |url=https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/howto/access.html |title=Access Control - Apache HTTP Server |publisher=Httpd.apache.org |access-date=2013-12-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20131229110831/http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.2/howto/access.html |archive-date=2013-12-29 |url-status=live }}{{cite web |url=http://www.iis.net/configreference/system.webserver/security/requestfiltering/filteringrules/filteringrule/denystrings |title=Deny Strings for Filtering Rules : The Official Microsoft IIS Site |publisher=Iis.net |date=2013-11-06 |access-date=2013-12-29 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140101112730/http://www.iis.net/configreference/system.webserver/security/requestfiltering/filteringrules/filteringrule/denystrings |archive-date=2014-01-01 |url-status=live }}

Some sites, such as Google, host a humans.txt file that displays information meant for humans to read.{{Cite web |url=https://www.google.com/humans.txt |title=Google humans.txt |access-date=October 3, 2019 |archive-date=January 24, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170124121422/https://www.google.com/humans.txt |url-status=live }} Some sites such as GitHub redirect humans.txt to an About page.{{Cite web |url=https://github.com/humans.txt |title=Github humans.txt |website=GitHub |access-date=October 3, 2019 |archive-date=May 30, 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160530160942/https://github.com/humans.txt |url-status=live }}

Previously, Google had a joke file hosted at /killer-robots.txt instructing the Terminator not to kill the company founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin.{{Cite web|url=https://slate.com/technology/2014/07/a-killer-robots-txt-google-easter-egg.html|title=Is This a Google Easter Egg or Proof That Skynet Is Actually Plotting World Domination?|last=Newman|first=Lily Hay|date=2014-07-03|website=Slate Magazine|language=en|access-date=2019-10-03|archive-date=2018-11-18|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181118104127/https://slate.com/technology/2014/07/a-killer-robots-txt-google-easter-egg.html|url-status=live}}{{Cite web|url=https://www.google.com/killer-robots.txt|title=/killer-robots.txt|date=2018-01-10|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180110160916/https://www.google.com/killer-robots.txt|archive-date=2018-01-10|access-date=2018-05-25}}

This example tells all robots that they can visit all files because the wildcard * stands for all robots and the Disallow directive has no value, meaning no pages are disallowed. Search engine giant Google open-sourced their robots.txt parser,{{cite web |url=https://github.com/google/robotstxt |title=Google Robots.txt Parser and Matcher Library |access-date=April 13, 2025}} and recommends testing and validating rules on the robots.txt file using community-built testers such as Tame the Bots {{cite web |url=https://tamethebots.com/tools/robotstxt-checker |title=Robots.txt Testing & Validator Tool - Tame the Bots |access-date=April 13, 2025}} and Real Robots Txt.{{cite web |url=https://www.realrobotstxt.com/ |title=Robots.txt parser based on Google's open source parser from Will Critchlow, CEO of SearchPilot |access-date=April 13, 2025}}

User-agent: *
Disallow:

This example has the same effect, allowing all files rather than prohibiting none.

User-agent: *
Allow: /

The same result can be accomplished with an empty or missing robots.txt file.

This example tells all robots to stay out of a website:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

This example tells all robots not to enter three directories:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /tmp/
Disallow: /junk/

This example tells all robots to stay away from one specific file:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /directory/file.html

All other files in the specified directory will be processed.

This example tells one specific robot to stay out of a website:

User-agent: BadBot # replace 'BadBot' with the actual user-agent of the bot
Disallow: /

This example tells two specific robots not to enter one specific directory:

User-agent: BadBot # replace 'BadBot' with the actual user-agent of the bot
User-agent: Googlebot
Disallow: /private/

Example demonstrating how comments can be used:

Comments appear after the "#" symbol at the start of a line, or after a directive

User-agent: * # match all bots
Disallow: / # keep them out

It is also possible to list multiple robots with their own rules. The actual robot string is defined by the crawler. A few robot operators, such as Google, support several user-agent strings that allow the operator to deny access to a subset of their services by using specific user-agent strings.

Example demonstrating multiple user-agents:

User-agent: googlebot        # all Google services
Disallow: /private/          # disallow this directory
User-agent: googlebot-news   # only the news service
Disallow: /                  # disallow everything
User-agent: *                # any robot
Disallow: /something/        # disallow this directory

The directive Disallow: /something/ blocks all files and subdirectories starting with /something/.

In contrast using a wildcard, (if supported by the crawler), allows for more complex patterns in specifying paths and files to allow or disallow from crawling, for example Disallow: /something/*/other blocks URLs such as:

/something/foo/other

/something/bar/other

It would not prevent the crawling of /something/foo/else, as that would not match the pattern.

The wildcard * allows greater flexibility but may not be recognized by all crawlers, although it is part of the Robots Exclusion Protocol RFC {{Cite report |url=https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc9309.html#name-special-characters |title=Robots Exclusion Protocol |last=Koster |first=Martijn |last2=Illyes |first2=Gary |last3=Zeller |first3=Henner |last4=Sassman |first4=Lizzi |date=September 2022 |publisher=Internet Engineering Task Force |issue=RFC 9309}}

A wildcard at the end of a rule in effect does nothing, as that is the standard behaviour.

The crawl-delay value is supported by some crawlers to throttle their visits to the host. Since this value is not part of the standard, its interpretation is dependent on the crawler reading it. It is used when the multiple burst of visits from bots is slowing down the host. Yandex interprets the value as the number of seconds to wait between subsequent visits. Bing defines crawl-delay as the size of a time window (from 1 to 30 seconds) during which BingBot will access a web site only once.{{cite web |url=https://blogs.bing.com/webmaster/2012/05/03/to-crawl-or-not-to-crawl-that-is-bingbots-question/ |title=To crawl or not to crawl, that is BingBot's question |date=3 May 2012 |access-date=9 February 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160203142822/https://blogs.bing.com/webmaster/2012/05/03/to-crawl-or-not-to-crawl-that-is-bingbots-question/ |archive-date=2016-02-03 |url-status=live }} Google ignores this directive,{{cite web |title=How Google interprets the robots.txt specification |url=https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/robots/robots_txt |website=Google Search Central |access-date=2024-10-06 |date=2024-05-23}} but provides an interface in its search console for webmasters, to control the Googlebot's subsequent visits.{{cite web |title=Change Googlebot crawl rate - Search Console Help |url=https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/48620?hl=en |website=support.google.com |access-date=22 October 2018 |language=en |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181118205747/https://support.google.com/webmasters/answer/48620?hl=en |archive-date=2018-11-18 |url-status=live }}

User-agent: bingbot
Allow: /
Crawl-delay: 10

Some crawlers support a Sitemap directive, allowing multiple Sitemaps in the same robots.txt in the form Sitemap: full-url:{{cite web |url=http://ysearchblog.com/2007/04/11/webmasters-can-now-auto-discover-with-sitemaps/ |title=Yahoo! Search Blog - Webmasters can now auto-discover with Sitemaps |access-date=2009-03-23 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090305061841/http://ysearchblog.com/2007/04/11/webmasters-can-now-auto-discover-with-sitemaps/ |archive-date=2009-03-05 |url-status=dead }}

Sitemap: http://www.example.com/sitemap.xml

The Robot Exclusion Standard does not mention the "*" character in the Disallow: statement.{{cite web |url=https://developers.google.com/search/reference/robots_txt?hl=en |title=Robots.txt Specifications |website=Google Developers |access-date=February 15, 2020 |archive-date=November 2, 2019 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191102192623/https://developers.google.com/search/reference/robots_txt?hl=en |url-status=live }}

In addition to root-level robots.txt files, robots exclusion directives can be applied at a more granular level through the use of Robots meta tags and X-Robots-Tag HTTP headers. The robots meta tag cannot be used for non-HTML files such as images, text files, or PDF documents. On the other hand, the X-Robots-Tag can be added to non-HTML files by using .htaccess and httpd.conf files.{{cite web |url=https://developers.google.com/webmasters/control-crawl-index/docs/robots_meta_tag |title=Robots meta tag and X-Robots-Tag HTTP header specifications - Webmasters — Google Developers |access-date=2013-08-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130808020946/https://developers.google.com/webmasters/control-crawl-index/docs/robots_meta_tag |archive-date=2013-08-08 |url-status=live }}

X-Robots-Tag: noindex

The X-Robots-Tag is only effective after the page has been requested and the server responds, and the robots meta tag is only effective after the page has loaded, whereas robots.txt is effective before the page is requested. Thus if a page is excluded by a robots.txt file, any robots meta tags or X-Robots-Tag headers are effectively ignored because the robot will not see them in the first place.

The Robots Exclusion Protocol requires crawlers to parse at least 500 kibibytes (512000 bytes) of robots.txt files,{{Ref RFC|9309|section=2.5: Limits}} which Google maintains as a 500 kibibyte file size restriction for robots.txt files.{{Cite web |title=How Google Interprets the robots.txt Specification {{!}} Documentation |url=https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/robots/robots_txt |access-date=2022-10-17 |website=Google Developers |language=en |archive-date=2022-10-17 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221017101925/https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/robots/robots_txt |url-status=live }}

{{Portal|Internet}}

{{Div col|colwidth=30em}}

• ads.txt, a standard for listing authorized ad sellers
• security.txt, a file to describe the process for security researchers to follow in order to report security vulnerabilities
• eBay v. Bidder's Edge
• Automated Content Access Protocol – A failed proposal to extend robots.txt
• BotSeer – Now inactive search engine for robots.txt files
• Distributed web crawling
• Focused crawler
• Internet Archive
• Meta elements for search engines
• National Digital Library Program (NDLP)
• National Digital Information Infrastructure and Preservation Program (NDIIPP)
• nofollow
• noindex
• Perma.cc
• Sitemaps
• Spider trap
• Web archiving
• Web crawler

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{{Reflist|30em}}

• {{Cite web |last=Allyn |first=Bobby |date=5 July 2024 |title=Artificial Intelligence Web Crawlers Are Running Amok |url=https://www.npr.org/2024/07/05/nx-s1-5026932/artificial-intelligence-web-crawlers-are-running-amok |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20240706063210/https://www.npr.org/2024/07/05/nx-s1-5026932/artificial-intelligence-web-crawlers-are-running-amok |archive-date=6 July 2024 |work=All Things Considered |publisher=NPR |access-date=6 July 2024}}

• {{Official website|https://www.robotstxt.org}}

{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Robots Exclusion Standard}}

Category:Search engine optimization

Category:Websites

Category:Web scraping

Category:Text files