Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
Robot.txt : How to block a specific file type in several subdirectories ?
-
Hello everyone !
I need help setting up a robot.txt.
I'm trying to block all pdf files in particular directories so I'm using this command. In the example below the line is blocking all .gif in the entire site.
Block files of a specific file type (for example,
.gif) | Disallow: /*.gif$2 questions :
- Can I use this command to specify one particular directory in which I want to block pdf files ? Will this line be recognized by googlebots ?
Disallow: /fileadmin/xxxxxxx/xxx/xxxxxxx/*.pdf$
- Then I realized that I would have to write as many lines as many directories there are in which I want to block pdf files.
Let's say I want to block pdf files in all these 3 directories
/fileadmin/directory1
/fileadmin/directory1/sub1
/fileadmin/directory1/sub1/pdf
Is there a pattern-matching rule I could use to blocks access to pdf files in all subdirectories instead of writing 3x the above line for each subdirectory ? For exemple :
Disallow: /fileadmin/directory1*/
Many thanks in advance for any insight you may have.
-
Hey thank you for your answer, really appreciate it.
-
Use this code -
Disallow: /*.f$
If you want to block only one folder then use this -
Disallow: /folder1/.*f$
This rule will help to block both files only .pdf and .gif
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
-
Robots.txt allows wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
Hello, Mozzers!
Technical SEO | | AndyKubrin
I noticed something peculiar in the robots.txt used by one of my clients: Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php What would be the purpose of allowing a search engine to crawl this file?
Is it OK? Should I do something about it?
Everything else on /wp-admin/ is disallowed.
Thanks in advance for your help.
-AK:2 -
Role of Robots.txt and Search Console parameters settings
Hi, wondering if anyone can point me to resources or explain the difference between these two. If a site has url parameters disallowed in Robots.txt is it redundant to edit settings in Search Console parameters to anything other than "Let Googlebot Decide"?
Technical SEO | | LivDetrick0 -
Robots.txt Tester - syntax not understood
I've looked in the robots.txt Tester and I can see 3 warnings: There is a 'syntax not understood' warning for each of these. XML Sitemaps:
Technical SEO | | JamesHancocks1
https://www.pkeducation.co.uk/post-sitemap.xml
https://www.pkeducation.co.uk/sitemap_index.xml How do I fix or reformat these to remove the warnings? Many thanks in advance.
Jim0 -
Multiple robots.txt files on server
Hi! I have previously hired a developer to put up my site and noticed afterwards that he did not know much about SEO. This lead me to starting to learn myself and applying some changes step by step. One of the things I am currently doing is inserting sitemap reference in robots.txt file (which was not there before). But just now when I wanted to upload the file via FTP to my server I found multiple ones - in different sizes - and I dont know what to do with them? Can I remove them? I have downloaded and opened them and they seem to be 2 textfiles and 2 dupplicates. Names: robots.txt (original dupplicate)
Technical SEO | | mjukhud
robots.txt-Original (original)
robots.txt-NEW (other content)
robots.txt-Working (other content dupplicate) Would really appreciate help and expertise suggestions. Thanks!0 -
2 sitemaps on my robots.txt?
Hi, I thought that I just could link one sitemap from my site's robots.txt but... I may be wrong. So, I need to confirm if this kind of implementation is right or wrong: robots.txt for Magento Community and Enterprise ...
Technical SEO | | Webicultors
Sitemap: http://www.mysite.es/media/sitemap/es.xml
Sitemap: http://www.mysite.pt/media/sitemap/pt.xml Thanks in advance,0 -
Removing CSS & JS Files from Index
Hi, Google has indexed a few .CSS and .JS files that belong to our WordPress plugins and themes. I had them blocked via robots, but realized this doesn't prevent indexation (and can likely hurt us since Google wants to access these files). I've since removed the robots instructions, submitted a removal request via Search Console, but want to make sure they don't come back. Is there a way to put a noindex tag within .CSS and .JS files? Or should I do something with .htaccess instead?
Technical SEO | | kirmeliux1 -
Robots.txt and Multiple Sitemaps
Hello, I have a hopefully simple question but I wanted to ask to get a "second opinion" on what to do in this situation. I am working on a clients robots.txt and we have multiple sitemaps. Using yoast I have my sitemap_index.xml and I also have a sitemap-image.xml I do put them in google and bing by hand but wanted to have it added into the robots.txt for insurance. So my question is, when having multiple sitemaps called out on a robots.txt file does it matter if one is before the other? From my reading it looks like you can have multiple sitemaps called out, but I wasn't sure the best practice when writing it up in the file. Example: User-agent: * Disallow: Disallow: /cgi-bin/ Disallow: /wp-admin/ Disallow: /wp-content/plugins/ Sitemap: http://sitename.com/sitemap_index.xml Sitemap: http://sitename.com/sitemap-image.xml Thanks a ton for the feedback, I really appreciate it! :) J
Technical SEO | | allstatetransmission0 -
Merging several sites into one - best practice
I had 2 sites on the web (www.physicseditor.de, www.texutrepacker.com) and decided to move them all under one single domain (www.codeandweb.com) Both sites were ranking very good for several keywords. I not redirected the most important pages from the old domains with a 301 redirect to the new subpages (www.texturepacker.com => www.codeandweb.com/texturepacker) Google still delivers the old domains but the redirect take people directly to the new content. I've already submitted the new site map to google webmaster tools. Pages are already in the index but do not really show up in the search results. How long does it take until google accepts the new domain and delivers the new content in the search results? Was it ok what I did? Or is there some room for improvement? SeoMoz will of course not find any information about the new page since it is not yet directly linked in google. But I can't get ranking information for the "old" pages since SeoMoz tells me that it can't crawl the old domains....
Technical SEO | | gossi740