Robots.txt file
From Joomla! Documentation
Web Robots (Crawlers, Web Wanderers or Spiders) are programs that traverse the Web automatically. Among many uses, search engines use them to index the web content. Robots.txt implements the REP (Robots Exclusion Protocol), which allows the web site administrator to define what parts of the site are off-limits to specific robot user agent names. Web administrators can Allow access to their web content and Disallow access to cgi, private and temporary directories, for example, if they do not want pages in those areas indexed.
Where to place my robots.txt file?[edit]
A standard robots.txt its included in your joomla root. The robots.txt file must reside in the root of the domain and must be named "robots.txt".
Joomla in a subdomain[edit]
A robots.txt file located in a subdirectory isn't valid, as bots only check for this file in the root of the domain. If the Joomla site is installed within a folder such as at e.g. www.example.com/joomla/ the robots.txt file MUST be moved to the site root at e.g. www.example.com/robots.txt . Note: The joomla folder name MUST be prefixed to the disallowed path, e.g. the Disallow rule for the /administrator/ folder MUST be changed to read Disallow: /joomla/administrator/
Joomla robots.txt contents[edit]
This is the contents of a standard Joomla robots.txt
User-agent: *
Disallow: /administrator/
Disallow: /cache/
Disallow: /cli/
Disallow: /components/
Disallow: /images/
Disallow: /includes/
Disallow: /installation/
Disallow: /language/
Disallow: /libraries/
Disallow: /logs/
Disallow: /media/
Disallow: /modules/
Disallow: /plugins/
Disallow: /templates/
Disallow: /tmp/
Robot Exclusion[edit]
You can exclude directories or block robots from your site adding Disallow rule to the robots.txt
Infos:
Syntax checking[edit]
For syntax checking you can use a validator for robots.txt files. Try one of these:
- Motoricerca Robots.txt Checker
- [1]Robots.txt Frobee Robots.txt Checker]
- Search Engine Promotion Help robots.txt Checker
Joomla! Documentation[edit]
- Creating a Custom 404 Error Page
- Custom Error Pages
- System Error Pages
- Making your site Search Engine Friendly
- Entering search engine meta-data
How to: Robots.txt and Joomla[edit]
General informations[edit]
- The Web Robots Pages
- Robots meta tag and X-Robots-Tag HTTP header specifications
- Robots.txt and Search Indexing