robots-txt

name robots-txt description Use when applies to any public website. Use when auditing technical SEO foundations or diagnosing crawl coverage gaps. metadata {"category":"seo","priority":"high","difficulty":"beginner","estimatedTime":"10","source":"frontendchecklist.io","url":"https://frontendchecklist.io/en/rules/seo/robots-txt"} Publish a robots.txt file robots.txt is the first file crawlers fetch; misconfigured directives can silently block search engines from crawling your entire site, killing organic visibility. Quick Reference Serve a valid robots.txt at /robots.txt on the production domain, returning HTTP 200 Include a Sitemap: directive pointing to your XML sitemap Never disallow crawling of CSS/JS assets that render your pages Avoid blocking all crawlers with Disallow: / on a live site Check Fetch /robots.txt on the live domain and verify it returns HTTP 200, uses correct User-agent / Disallow / Allow syntax, and includes a Sitemap: directive pointing to the XML sitemap. Check for accidental Disallow: / directives. Fix Create or update robots.txt at the web root with valid directives. Add a live Sitemap: line for the production sitemap URL. Remove any Disallow: / rules that block the whole site or resources needed for rendering. Explain Explain how robots.txt controls crawler access, why an accidental Disallow: / can delist a site, and why CSS/JS must remain accessible for rendering-based indexing. Code Review Review metadata generation, rendered HTML, structured data, and response headers related to Publish a robots.txt file. Flag exact routes or templates where search-facing output violates the rule, and describe how to verify the final page output. For full implementation details, code examples, and framework-specific guidance, see references/rule.md . Rule page: https://frontendchecklist.io/en/rules/seo/robots-txt