Google Updates Robots.txt Policy: Unsupported Fields Are Ignored via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google limits robots.txt support to four fields, clarifying its stance on unsupported directives. The post Google Updates Robots.txt Policy: Unsupported Fields Are Ignored appeared first on Search Engine Journal.

Oct 7, 2024 - 21:03

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Google Updates Robots.txt Policy: Unsupported Fields Are Ignored via @sejournal, @MattGSouthern

Google limits robots.txt support to four fields, clarifying its stance on unsupported directives.

Google only supports four specific robots.txt fields. Unsupported directives in robots.txt will be ignored. Consider auditing your robots.txt files in light of this update.

In a recent update to its Search Central documentation, Google has clarified its position on unsupported fields in robots.txt files.

Key Update

Google has stated that its crawlers don’t support fields not listed in its robots.txt documentation.

This clarification is part of Google’s efforts to provide unambiguous guidance to website owners and developers.

Google states:

“We sometimes get questions about fields that aren’t explicitly listed as supported, and we want to make it clear that they aren’t.”

This update should eliminate confusion and prevent websites from relying on unsupported directives.

What This Means:

Stick to Supported Fields: Use only the fields explicitly mentioned in Google’s documentation. Review Existing Robots.txt Files: Audit current robots.txt files to ensure they don’t contain unsupported directives. Understand Limitations: Google’s crawlers may not recognize certain third-party or custom directives.

Supported Fields:

According to the updated documentation, Google officially supports the following fields in robots.txt files:

user-agent allow disallow sitemap

Notable Omissions:

While not explicitly stated, this clarification implies that Google doesn’t support commonly used directives like “crawl-delay,” although other search engines may recognize them.

‌Additionally, it’s worth noting that Google is phasing out support for the ‘noarchive‘ directive.