Wildcard Rules in robots.txt That Accidentally Block Indexing
A single robots.txt wildcard can hide thousands of URLs from search. Learn star and dollar patterns, common accidents, and safe testing routines for teams.
Topic
robots.txt: Directives, Crawlers and Mistakes
Writing robots.txt that helps rather than blocks, naming AI crawlers deliberately, and the errors that deindex a site.
5 articles
robots.txt for AI Bots: Block, Allow, or Something In Between?
Learn robots.txt ai bots control with precise allow and disallow rules for GPTBot and ClaudeBot, plus testing steps and maintenance to protect search traffic.
Should You Block GPTBot? The Trade-Off Nobody Mentions
Learn when to block GPTBot and when to allow it, weighing training reuse versus answer visibility, plus exact robots rules and a clear decision checklist.
The Complete List of AI Crawlers (And What They Do)
Browse this ai crawlers list covering GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and Bytespider, with purposes, costs, log checks and simple policy steps for your site.
Is robots.txt Blocking Your Indexing? How to Audit It
Learn how robots.txt blocking indexing hides sections from Google, which disallow patterns overblock, plus audit steps to test access and fix blocks fast.