Test important paths
Audit templates, assets, admin areas, parameters, and canonical content separately.
Robots.txt Tester
Fetch or paste robots.txt rules and test crawler access to a URL path.
or paste manually
Understand crawler directives
Robots.txt controls crawling, not guaranteed indexing. Specific allow and disallow rules are evaluated for the selected crawler.
Prefer precision
Overly broad disallow rules can remove essential pages or rendering assets from crawling.
Use noindex correctly
A robots block can prevent crawlers from seeing a page-level noindex directive.
How to use Robots.txt Tester
Get a reliable result in three straightforward steps.
Load or paste rules
Fetch robots.txt from a domain or paste the file contents.
Choose a path and crawler
Test the URL path and user-agent you care about.
Read the verdict
See whether the most specific matching rule allows or blocks crawling.
Built for everyday work
Useful without the busywork
Focused controls, immediate feedback, and no account between you and the result.
Crawler-specific tests
Compare Googlebot, Bingbot, and common AI crawlers.
Fetch or paste
Audit a live file or a draft before you publish it.
Matched rule display
See exactly which allow or disallow line decided the result.
Practical guide
What is Robots.txt Tester?
A robots.txt file tells crawlers which paths they may request. It controls crawling, not guaranteed indexing, and different user-agents can receive different rules.
Allow and disallow directives are matched by path length and specificity. Blocking a page in robots.txt can also stop crawlers from seeing a later noindex tag on that page.
Practical reference
Robots.txt versus other controls
OptionGood forImportant consideration
robots.txt
Good for
Crawl access to URL paths
Important consideration
Does not reliably remove a URL that is already indexed
noindex
Good for
Indexing of a fetched page
Important consideration
The crawler must be allowed to request the page to see it
Authentication
Good for
Private user content
Important consideration
Stronger than robots.txt for truly confidential pages
Canonical tags
Good for
Duplicate URL selection
Important consideration
Complement robots rules; they do not replace them
Practical applications
When to use this tool
Common ways Robots.txt Tester fits into real projects and daily tasks.
Launch checks
Confirm important templates remain crawlable.
Admin protection
Verify private or parameter-heavy paths are blocked.
AI crawler policy
Test dedicated groups for GPTBot, ClaudeBot, or similar agents.
Incident review
Diagnose why a section suddenly disappeared from crawl logs.
Frequently Asked Questions
Clear answers about supported formats, processing, privacy, and common workflows.