How To Use Robots.txt File Effectively For Better SEO Results

Robots.txt files are important in your website because these files tell the crawlers and search engines which URLs they should not visit. With the help of robots.txt files, it is easy for you to stop the crawling of low-quality pages on your website. These files are also helpful to stop crawling of the URLs that are struck in the crawl traps. These types of URLs are those URLs that are created regularly on your website. For example, if you have used a calendar on your website, it will refresh every day and it will create new URLs. These kinds of multiple URLs on your website can decrease the SEO of your website. If you are stopping the search engines and crawlers from the crawling of these kinds of URLs, it means that you are improving the SEO of your website. Here, we will discuss how to use robots.txt file effectively for better SEO results.

When Should We Use Robots.Txt File?

As we have discussed earlier that we can use robots.txt files for various purposes but we should try to use robots.txt files as little as possible. Anyhow, if you want to increase the accessibility of your website and you want to make it clean, use of robot.txt files is the best solution to you. Usually, Google recommends the websites that there should be robots.txt files for the purpose of preventing the crawling of non-index able sections of the website. This is the best way to decrease the time of Google crawlers. Some essential examples of the pages that require robots.txt files in your website are given below;

1. If you have created such category pages in your website which have non-standard sorting or these pages include duplicated content, it is necessary for you to stop crawling of these kinds of pages.
2. If you have used user-generated content in your website without modification, it is also necessary for you to stop crawling of this kind of content by using robots.txt file.
3. If you have created such pages on your website which are providing sensitive information to the visitors, you should also try to stop crawling of these kinds of pages with the help of robots.txt file.
4. In your website, if there are some pages which are providing bad experience to the users and these pages can waste the budget of crawlers, it is also necessary to you to stop crawling of these kinds of pages by using robots.txt files.

Why Shouldn’t We Use Robots.Txt File?

If you have used robots.txt file correctly on your website, this file is very helpful to your website. Anyhow, there are also some cases in which we should not use robots.txt files. These cases are explained below;

1. You should not use it to block JavaScript or CSS. Its reason is that search engines need to render pages on your websites correctly before deciding the ranking of your website. JavaScript and CSS files are the best resources to enhance the user experience from the crawlers’ point of view. If you are stopping your website from the crawling of these kinds of files, it means that you are telling the search engines that your website is not providing the best user-experience to the users. As a result, there is a possibility that these search engines will penalize your website.
2. With the help of robots.txt files, it is easy for you to block some parameters of your URL but it is not true all the time. Its reason is that sometimes, there is a possibility that you have blocked such parameters of URLs with the help of robots.txt file which are necessary for the search engines to crawl.
3. Sometimes, there are some websites which block the URLs with backlinks. As a result, these websites are asking the search engines that they should not follow these links. If search engines are not following these links, it means that your website will not be able to get any kind of benefit from this link. As a result, there is a possibility that you will not be able to get enough benefit in improving the ranking of your website.
4. It is a fact that social media sites are playing an essential role in increasing traffic to your website. Therefore, while using robots.txt file, you should keep in mind that you are just stopping search engines’ crawlers from the crawling of pages on your website and you are allowing the social media sites to get access to your pages. If you disallow social media sites, you will not be able to get traffic from social media sites.

Author Bio:

This article is written by Chris Greenwalty who is author and writer at UK based company, The Academic Papers UK.