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
13
Android
2
API
7
apps
7
autocomplete
2
beginner
173
CAPTCHA
1
Chrome
2
cms
1
crawling and indexing
158
encryption
3
events
51
feedback and communication
83
forums
5
general tips
90
geotargeting
1
Google Assistant
3
Google I/O
3
Google Images
3
Google News
2
hacked sites
12
hangout
2
hreflang
3
https
5
images
12
intermediate
205
interstitials
1
javascript
8
job search
2
localization
21
malware
6
mobile
63
mobile-friendly
14
nohacked
1
performance
17
product expert
1
product experts
2
products and services
63
questions
3
ranking
1
recipes
1
rendering
2
Responsive Web Design
3
rich cards
7
rich results
10
search console
35
search for beginners
1
search queries
7
search results
140
security
12
seo
3
sitemaps
46
speed
6
structured data
33
summit
1
TLDs
1
url removals
1
UX
3
verification
8
video
6
webmaster community
24
webmaster forum
1
webmaster guidelines
57
webmaster tools
177
webmasters
3
youtube channel
6
Archive
2020
Nov
Oct
Sept
Aug
July
June
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2019
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sept
Aug
July
June
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2018
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sept
Aug
July
June
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2017
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sept
Aug
June
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2016
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sept
Aug
June
May
Apr
Mar
Jan
2015
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sept
Aug
July
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2014
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sept
Aug
July
June
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2013
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sept
Aug
July
June
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2012
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sept
Aug
July
June
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2011
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sept
Aug
July
June
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2010
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sept
Aug
July
June
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2009
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sept
Aug
July
June
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2008
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sept
Aug
July
June
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2007
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sept
Aug
July
June
May
Apr
Mar
Feb
Jan
2006
Dec
Nov
Oct
Sept
Aug
Feed
Follow @googlewmc
Give us feedback in our
Product Forums
.
Subscribe via email
Enter your email address:
Delivered by
FeedBurner