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    Robots.txt allows wp-admin/admin-ajax.php

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    • AndyKubrin
      AndyKubrin last edited by

      Hello, Mozzers!
      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:

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