Webmaster Central Blog
Official news on crawling and indexing sites for the Google index
All about robots
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
Search engine robots, including our very own Googlebot, are incredibly polite. They work hard to respect your every wish regarding what pages they should and should not crawl. How can they tell the difference? You have to tell them, and you have to speak their language, which is an industry standard called the
Robots Exclusion Protocol.
Dan Crow has written about this on the Google Blog recently, including an introduction to setting up your own rules for robots and a description of some of the more advanced options. His first two posts in the series are:
Controlling how search engines access and index your website
The Robots Exclusion Protocol
Stay tuned for the next installment.
While we're on the topic, I'd also like to point you to the
robots section of our help center
and our earlier posts on this topic:
Debugging Blocked URLs
All About Googlebot
Using a robots.txt File
Update:
For more information, please see our
robots.txt documentation
.
Hey!
Check here if your site is mobile-friendly.
Labels
accessibility
10
advanced
195
AMP
10
Android
1
API
6
apps
7
autocomplete
2
beginner
172
CAPTCHA
1
Chrome
2
cms
1
crawling and indexing
151
encryption
2
events
48
feedback and communication
80
forums
4
general tips
90
geotargeting
1
Google Assistant
2
Google I/O
1
Google Images
2
Google News
2
hacked sites
12
hangout
1
hreflang
3
https
5
images
10
intermediate
204
interstitials
1
javascript
4
job search
2
localization
21
malware
6
mobile
60
mobile-friendly
11
nohacked
1
performance
15
product expert
1
product experts
1
products and services
63
questions
3
recipes
1
rendering
1
Responsive Web Design
2
rich cards
7
rich results
9
search console
29
search queries
6
search results
131
security
12
sitemaps
45
speed
3
structured data
31
summit
1
TLDs
1
url removals
1
UX
3
verification
8
video
5
webmaster community
15
webmaster forum
1
webmaster guidelines
54
webmaster tools
172
youtube channel
2
Archive
2019
Mar
Feb
Jan
2018
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2017
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2016
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Jan
2015
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2014
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2013
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2012
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2011
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2010
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2009
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2008
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2007
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Jul
Jun
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2006
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sep
Aug
Feed
Google
on
Follow @googlewmc
Give us feedback in our
Product Forums
.
Subscribe via email
Enter your email address:
Delivered by
FeedBurner
