The robots.txt file controls which parts of your website search engine crawlers and AI bots can access. A misconfigured robots.txt can accidentally block Google from indexing your pages, or block AI assistants from understanding your content. This tool fetches and analyzes your robots.txt file, showing exactly what is allowed and blocked for each crawler.
How to use this tool
Enter your website URL
We fetch the robots.txt file from your domain root
Review the rules for each User-agent
Check for common misconfigurations that block important crawlers
Frequently asked questions
What happens if I block Googlebot in robots.txt?
Blocking Googlebot prevents Google from crawling and indexing your pages. Your pages will eventually disappear from Google search results. However, if other sites link to your blocked pages, Google may still show the URL in results but without a description or cached version.
Should I allow AI bots in robots.txt?
If you want your website to be recommended by AI assistants like ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity, you should allow their respective bots (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot) to crawl your site. Blocking them means AI assistants will have less information about your content and are less likely to recommend you.
Does robots.txt protect private content?
No. robots.txt is a suggestion, not a security mechanism. Any user or bot can read your robots.txt file and learn which URLs you are trying to hide. For truly private content, use proper authentication, HTTP authorization, or do not put the content on a publicly accessible server.