Robots.txt
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should I add anything else besides User-Agent: * to my robots.txt file?
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Thanks for the explanation!
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Thank you Ryan
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Every section of your robots.txt file consists of declaring the agents the rules will apply to, and then the rules themselves.
In your file the User-Agent: * is the first part, where you are saying the following rules apply to every type of visitor. But if you only have that, and no actual rules, then you don't really need a robots.txt file. The "normal" file Jordan refers to in his answer is probably a good best practice, but isn't technically necessary.
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Thank you Jordan
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If I'm implementing just a "normal" robots.txt file I always put
User-agent: * Allow: /But you can also list a directory that you don't want to be indexed like
Disallow: /downloads
So if you wanted your whole site to be indexed except for /downloads and /users I believe your robots.txt would look like
User-agent: *
Disallow: /downloads
Disallow: /users
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