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    4. Using 2 wildcards in the robots.txt file

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    Using 2 wildcards in the robots.txt file

    Intermediate & Advanced SEO
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    • seo123456
      seo123456 last edited by

      I have a URL string which I don't want to be indexed. it includes the characters _Q1 ni the middle of the string.

      So in the robots.txt can I use 2 wildcards in the string to take out all of the URLs with that in it?  So something like /_Q1.  Will that pickup and block every  URL with those characters in the string?

      Also, this is not directly of the root, but in a secondary directory, so .com/.../_Q1.  So do I have to format the robots.txt as //_Q1* as it will be in the second folder or just using /_Q1 will pickup everything no matter what folder it is on?

      Thanks.

      1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
      • lonniea
        lonniea last edited by

        I'm not 100% positive, however it does make sense to use it this way.

        User-agent: *
        Disallow: /*_Q1$

        1 Reply Last reply Reply Quote 0
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