Will an XML sitemap override a robots.txt
-
I have a client that has a robots.txt file that is blocking an entire subdomain, entirely by accident. Their original solution, not realizing the robots.txt error, was to submit an xml sitemap to get their pages indexed.
I did not think this tactic would work, as the robots.txt would take precedent over the xmls sitemap. But it worked... I have no explanation as to how or why.
Does anyone have an answer to this? or any experience with a website that has had a clear Disallow: / for months , that somehow has pages in the index?
-
The robots file will avoid google to show further information on the disallowed pages but it doesn't prevent indexation.
They're still indexed (that's why you're seeing them) but with no meta desc nor text taken from the page because google wasn't allowed to retrieve more information.
If you want them to start showing info, you'll jsut need to remove that rule from the robots.txt and soon you'll start seeing those pages information showing, but if you want them out of the index you can use GWT to remove them from the index after you've included in each page the noindex meta tag which is the only command which will prevent indexation.
-
I assumed the same thing, but I performed a site command search while they were prospects, and they had 1 result present with the explanation of "A description for this result is not available because of this site's robots.txt – learn more"
They uploaded an xml sitemap before I could tell them to remove the robots.txt. and 1 week later, the entire site is now in the index.
I have used the robots.txt to properly block websites, it usually takes 2-3 for all results to drop out the index, so I don't know how that could explain it either.
-
I agree, the only way I could think this would work would be if the robotx.txt file was on the root domain. I agree, check Webmaster tools, they will tell you under the sitemaps section about "Error: URL was blocked by robots.txt).
One thing to remember is that robots.txt is technically a suggestion to ask search engines not to crawl your site. They can choose to ignore it, though personally I don't know of any cases in which this happenned.
-
An XML sitemap shouldn't override robots.txt. If you have Google Webmaster Tools setup, you will see warnings on the sitemaps page that pages being blocked by robots are being submitted.
Now, robots.txt does not prevent indexation, just crawling. So if the pages were indexed before they implemented robots.txt, they may continue to be indexed. Google will also display just the URL for pages that it's discovered, but can't crawl because of robots.txt.
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
Google Webmaster Tools is saying "Sitemap contains urls which are blocked by robots.txt" after Https move...
Hi Everyone, I really don't see anything wrong with our robots.txt file after our https move that just happened, but Google says all URLs are blocked. The only change I know we need to make is changing the sitemap url to https. Anything you all see wrong with this robots.txt file? robots.txt This file is to prevent the crawling and indexing of certain parts of your site by web crawlers and spiders run by sites like Yahoo! and Google. By telling these "robots" where not to go on your site, you save bandwidth and server resources. This file will be ignored unless it is at the root of your host: Used: http://example.com/robots.txt Ignored: http://example.com/site/robots.txt For more information about the robots.txt standard, see: http://www.robotstxt.org/wc/robots.html For syntax checking, see: http://www.sxw.org.uk/computing/robots/check.html Website Sitemap Sitemap: http://www.bestpricenutrition.com/sitemap.xml Crawlers Setup User-agent: * Allowable Index Allow: /*?p=
Technical SEO | | vetofunk
Allow: /index.php/blog/
Allow: /catalog/seo_sitemap/category/ Directories Disallow: /404/
Disallow: /app/
Disallow: /cgi-bin/
Disallow: /downloader/
Disallow: /includes/
Disallow: /lib/
Disallow: /magento/
Disallow: /pkginfo/
Disallow: /report/
Disallow: /stats/
Disallow: /var/ Paths (clean URLs) Disallow: /index.php/
Disallow: /catalog/product_compare/
Disallow: /catalog/category/view/
Disallow: /catalog/product/view/
Disallow: /catalogsearch/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /control/
Disallow: /contacts/
Disallow: /customer/
Disallow: /customize/
Disallow: /newsletter/
Disallow: /poll/
Disallow: /review/
Disallow: /sendfriend/
Disallow: /tag/
Disallow: /wishlist/
Disallow: /aitmanufacturers/index/view/
Disallow: /blog/tag/
Disallow: /advancedreviews/abuse/reportajax/
Disallow: /advancedreviews/ajaxproduct/
Disallow: /advancedreviews/proscons/checkbyproscons/
Disallow: /catalog/product/gallery/
Disallow: /productquestions/index/ajaxform/ Files Disallow: /cron.php
Disallow: /cron.sh
Disallow: /error_log
Disallow: /install.php
Disallow: /LICENSE.html
Disallow: /LICENSE.txt
Disallow: /LICENSE_AFL.txt
Disallow: /STATUS.txt Paths (no clean URLs) Disallow: /.php$
Disallow: /?SID=
disallow: /?cat=
disallow: /?price=
disallow: /?flavor=
disallow: /?dir=
disallow: /?mode=
disallow: /?list=
disallow: /?limit=5
disallow: /?limit=10
disallow: /?limit=15
disallow: /?limit=20
disallow: /*?limit=250 -
Do I need a separate robots.txt file for my shop subdomain?
Hello Mozzers! Apologies if this question has been asked before, but I couldn't find an answer so here goes... Currently I have one robots.txt file hosted at https://www.mysitename.org.uk/robots.txt We host our shop on a separate subdomain https://shop.mysitename.org.uk Do I need a separate robots.txt file for my subdomain? (Some Google searches are telling me yes and some no and I've become awfully confused!
Technical SEO | | sjbridle0 -
My video sitemap is not being index by Google
Dear friends, I have a videos portal. I created a video sitemap.xml and submit in to GWT but after 20 days it has not been indexed. I have verified in bing webmaster as well. All videos are dynamically being fetched from server. My all static pages have been indexed but not videos. Please help me where am I doing the mistake. There are no separate pages for single videos. All the content is dynamically coming from server. Please help me. your answers will be more appreciated................. Thanks
Technical SEO | | docbeans0 -
Remove sitemap, effect ranking?
We are considering to remove our sitemap because it doesn't display the right structure. Will it affect current rankings if we remove the sitemap en continuing without a sitemap? Thanks
Technical SEO | | rijwielcashencarry0400 -
Generating a xml sitemap?
Hi What is everyone's preferred method of generating an XML sitemap? Just wondering if one piece of software is better than others?
Technical SEO | | TheZenAgency1 -
Differences in Sitemaps SEO wise?
I'm a bit confused about sitemaps. I'm just learning SEO so forgive me if this is a basic question. I've submitted my site to google webmaster using http://pro-sitemaps.com and the sitemap generator it creates. I've also seen sites do this: http://www.johnlewis.com/Shopping/ProductList.aspx and http://www.thesafestcandles.com/site-map.html so I did something similar for my site (www.ldnwicklesscandles.com). You figure you see everyone do it you might as well try it too and hope it works. 😉 So I've done both 1 and 2. Which sitemap is best for SEO purposes or should I do both? Is there any format that should or shouldn't be used for Option 2? Any site examples for good practice would be helpful.
Technical SEO | | cmjolley0 -
Sitemap for 170 K webpages
I have 170 K pages on my website which I want to be indexed. I have created a multiple HTML sitemaps (e.g. sitemap1.html, sitemap2.html,...etc) with each sitemap page having 3000 links. Is this right approach or should i switch to xml based sitemaps and that too multiple one. Please suggest.
Technical SEO | | ArtiKalra0 -
Robots.txt
Hello Everyone, The problem I'm having is not knowing where to have the robots.txt file on our server. We have our main domain (company.com) with a robots.txt file in the root of the site, but we also have our blog (company.com/blog) where were trying to disallow certain directories from being crawled for SEO purposes... Would having the blog in the sub-directory still need its own robots.txt? or can I reference the directories i don't want crawled within the blog using the root robots.txt file? Thanks for your insight on this matter.
Technical SEO | | BailHotline0