What is robots.txt?

Robots.txt is a text file that websites place in their root directory to communicate with web crawlers and search engine bots. It tells these automated visitors which pages or sections of a site they can or cannot access. This file follows the Robots Exclusion Protocol, a standard that helps site owners control how their content is indexed by search engines and accessed by web scrapers.

When a search engine bot visits a website, it first checks for the robots.txt file. Based on the instructions in this file, the bot knows whether it's allowed to crawl specific URLs, what delay it should wait between requests, and where to find XML sitemaps for more efficient crawling.

Tool Description

The Robots.txt Validator is an online tool that helps you test and verify how robots.txt rules apply to specific URLs. This robots txt parser allows you to paste robots.txt content, enter a URL you want to check, and specify a user-agent (like Googlebot, Bingbot, or the wildcard "*" for all bots). The robots txt validator tool will instantly tell you whether that URL is allowed or disallowed for the specified crawler, making it easy to test your robots txt file before deploying to production.

Features

  • URL Validation: Check if a specific URL is accessible to a particular user-agent according to robots.txt rules
  • User-Agent Testing: Test different user-agents (search engine bots) against the same URL
  • Online Parser: Use this robots txt validator online without any installation or registration
  • Crawl Delay Detection: Automatically displays crawl delay settings if specified in the robots.txt file
  • Sitemap Discovery: Shows all sitemap URLs referenced in the robots.txt file
  • Real-time Parsing: Instant validation as you type or modify the robots.txt content
  • Clear Results: Visual indicators showing whether access is allowed or disallowed

Use Cases

  • SEO Professionals: Verify that important pages aren't accidentally blocked from search engines and test my robots txt file before going live
  • Web Developers: Test robots.txt configurations before deploying to production using this robots txt validator tool
  • Content Managers: Ensure that specific sections of a website are properly protected or exposed to crawlers
  • Site Auditors: Quickly check if a URL is crawlable without accessing the live website
  • Bot Management: Configure and test different rules for various search engine crawlers