robots.txt Wildcards Explained

robots.txt wildcards can be controlled with robots.txt when the crawler respects the protocol. Use a specific rule, check the result, and avoid blocking Googlebot or Bingbot unless that is your real goal.

Copy-paste robots.txt example

User-agent: GPTBot
Disallow: /

User-agent: Googlebot
Allow: /

User-agent: *
Allow: /

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Quick answer

robots.txt wildcards is best handled with a specific robots.txt rule and a clear policy decision. The safest default for most sites is to keep regular search crawling open while blocking training or dataset crawlers that you do not want to allow.

What this means

robots.txt is a crawler instruction file. It can tell compliant crawlers which paths they should not request. It is not authentication, paywall protection or a guaranteed anti-scraping system.

SEO impact

Do not use broad rules like User-agent: * Disallow: / unless you really want to block nearly all compliant crawlers. Blocking search crawlers can damage ordinary search visibility.

How to use this page

Copy the example, adapt it to your site, upload it to your web root, and verify the result with the checker.

Common mistakes

Blocking Googlebot by accident.
Confusing AI search crawlers with training crawlers.
Uploading robots.txt into a subfolder instead of the domain root.
Expecting robots.txt to stop every scraper.

FAQ

Does this guarantee that every crawler will obey?

No. robots.txt is a standard instruction for compliant crawlers, not a hard security barrier.

Can this hurt Google Search visibility?

Yes, if you block Googlebot or use broad rules carelessly. The checker highlights common SEO risks.

Where should robots.txt be uploaded?

It must be available at the root of the host, for example https://example.com/robots.txt.

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