Robots.txt and meta robots tags are two different concepts of SEO (Search Engine Optimisation) that complement each other if used effectively. The purpose of robots.txt is to instruct the search engine crawlers about the entire website, whereas the meta robots tag explains the nitty-gritty of a specific web page. Some professionals prefer robots.txt while some go for meta robots tag. This differentiation is because the former is easier than the latter, and yet the effectiveness may differ from one another. Therefore, the best SEO agencies in India know how to make the most of both the tools.
What Is Robots.txt?
The robots.txt file is a part of the well-known REP (Robots Exclusion Protocol) concept that tells the crawlers (spiders and bots) what to crawl. Googlebot is the most familiar example of a crawler that Google deploys to crawl websites. It can also record useful information on that site to get a decisive result on how to rank the site on search results.
How To Set It Up For Best SEO Practices
For ensuring that search engine crawlers can find robots.txt easily, it is important to place them in the root directory of the website.
Robots.txt must be named as they are case-sensitive and can become ineffective otherwise.
To make the website more noticeable, use complete specifications of sitemap URL in the robots.txt.
One must not hide future events pages and private information in robots.txt.
For each subdomain under the root domain, one must use customised and dedicated robots.txt to maintain the authenticity of the website.
Before making the website online, one must make sure that he is not blocking anything that he does not want to show.
One must always validate and test the robots.txt by using the testing tool by Google to verify the functions of directives and checkout any possible errors.
Googlebot does not follow any links or URLs on pages blocked using robots.txt. Therefore, make sure that all the useful links present on the blocked pages are successfully linked to other pages of the website.
Google ends up crawling through pages that are blocked on robots.txt file but linked to other pages of the website. Therefore, one must ensure that there is no such issue present on the website while it is online.
What Is Meta Robots Tag?
Meta robots tags are code snippets of HTML that guide the search engine crawlers on how to crawl and index the available pages on the website. These tags are also termed as meta robots directives and added to the <head> section. Meta robots tags are a bit more complicated than robots.txt, but the best SEO agencies in India can serve the tags efficiently.
How To Set It Up For Best SEO Practices
The meta robots tags have two attributes; name and content. The SEO experts have to recognise the nature of these attributes and then use them accordingly. The few things that one must be careful with are:
Meta robots must not be used on the same page with x-robots as one of them can become redundant.
In case one does not want to get the web pages indexed but wants to pass the links to the linked pages, he must use meta robots with directives as “no index, follow”.
One should not use robots.txt on non-indexed pages and then use meta robots simultaneously.
For controlling the indexing and crawling patterns of a website, robots.txt and meta robots tags are essential. There are a lot of ways to control, but not all of them will turn out to be fruitful every time. Therefore, it is always better to take advantage of the expertise of SEO professionals who are well-aware of the concepts.
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