Setting up a robots.txt file can be vital in improving the search performance and search rankings of your website. If set up rightly, it can tell the search engine spiders-namely, Google's bots how to crawl and index your site for good SEO and ensure a smooth user experience. Yoast SEO allows WordPress users to create or edit the robots.txt file without access to the FTP client or knowledge of file editing. In this tutorial by DotsDen, learn how to create and optimize a Yoast SEO robots.txt file for your website.

What Is a Robots.txt File?

The robots.txt file is a text file that instructs search engine bots which pages or files are accessible to them on your site. It is a powerful utility for managing bot requests and helps avoid duplicate content problems by blocking non-vital pages or directories, like the wp-admin folder, from crawling. By setting default rules and additional rules, you guide the search engine on which parts of your site it should emphasize for indexing.

Why Use Yoast SEO to Create Your Robots.txt File?

Yoast SEO is one of the favorite WordPress plugins, renowned for its SEO tooling. It's part of an online community that has some very useful tools to help you with your search engine optimization. With Yoast, you'll be able to have a custom robots.txt file right in the WordPress back-end without an FTP client.

Steps to Create a Robots.txt File in Yoast SEO

1. Install and Activate Yoast SEO
   If you haven’t already, download and install the Yoast SEO plugin from the WordPress plugin repository. Once installed, activate the plugin, and ensure it’s updated to access the latest features, including robots.txt file editing.
2. Access the Yoast SEO Tools
• Go to your WordPress left-hand menu, find the “SEO” option, and click on it.
• In the Yoast SEO dashboard, navigate to Tools. The file editing feature allows you to create and edit your robots.txt file without needing file through FTP access.
3. Create a Basic Robots.txt File
• In the file editor, select the file button Edit under the robots.txt section.
• If no robots.txt file exists, Yoast SEO will prompt you to create a new one, known as a basic robots.txt file.
4. Customize the Robots.txt File
• Begin by defining rules to Block Access of Search Engine Crawlers to certain sections, like your admin folder or certain file directories.
• Use Disallow to prevent crawlers from accessing specific paths. For instance, adding Disallow: /wp-admin/ prevents search engines from indexing your admin area.
• You can specify a Crawl-Delay directive to control bot behavior, such as setting a crawl delay if you have limited server resources.
5. Add Advanced Directives
• Set crawl directives for certain bots by user-agent, which allows you to control specific bot behavior using crawl settings.
• Add additional rules or custom rules if your site has specific access rules. For instance, if your site has third-party plugins that generate duplicate content, you can exclude these from being indexed.
• Use the meta robots directive to provide specific instructions for search engines about indexing.
6. Test Your Robots.txt File in Google Search Console
• To ensure your robots.txt file is correct, log in to Google Search Console or Bing Webmaster Tools.
• Use the robots.txt tester to check if the rules are working as expected, confirming that search engine spiders are accessing only the intended areas.

Additional Tips for Optimizing Your Robots.txt File

• Avoid Over-Restrictive Directives: Blocking too many areas of your site can lead to indexing issues. Use separate disallow rule carefully, particularly if you’re running an e-commerce website with important pages like product listings.
• Include Relevant Content: Focus on making high-quality, relevant content accessible to bots, while excluding parts that could lead to bad user experience or affect SEO negatively.
• Manage Server Load: If you have a large site, using a crawl-delay direction can prevent bots from consuming excessive server resources, keeping site performance optimal.

The Benefits of a Well-Structured Robots.txt File

With Yoast SEO, a well-configured robots.txt file offers several advantages. First, this would be a better way for the search engines to understand the site structuring and avoid spending a lot of wasted crawl quota and crawl traffic on the non-essential parts of your site. A good robots.txt file will also improve your search rankings because it will be focused on the content for the search engines that really could bring in organic traffic. This approach supports a complete guide for crawlers so they can find their way through your high-quality pages but at the same time respects the way you handle files in your configuration.

Another good reason for this is that optimizing your robots.txt file with Yoast SEO, it will minimize the possibility of technical errors. You will have smoother SEO journeys since you are giving no duplicate content and an enhanced user experience all over the site.