Help / robots.txt tester
robots.txt tester
Reads a site’s robots.txt and tells you whether a crawler (Googlebot, Bing, GPTBot, ClaudeBot…) may fetch a given URL, which line decides it, and what’s wrong with the file.
How to use it
- Enter a full URL (the path matters) or just a domain to test the home page.
- Pick a crawler, or leave it on Googlebot.
- The top box gives the verdict and the exact rule; the table shows how every major search and AI crawler is treated on that path.
- The file is shown below with the deciding line highlighted.
Reading the results
- User-agent group
- A block of rules for one or more crawlers. A crawler uses its own group if there is one, otherwise the * group.
- Allow / Disallow
- Rules that permit or block paths starting with the given text.
- Longest match wins
- When several rules match, the most specific (longest) one decides. A tie goes to Allow.
- * and $
- * matches anything; $ at the end means “the URL ends here”. Disallow: /*.pdf$ blocks every PDF.
- Crawl-delay
- Seconds between requests. Bing honors it; Google ignores it.
Examples
- github.com/settings A path GitHub blocks
- nytimes.com Many AI crawlers blocked
From the command line
curl "https://tools.nexayori.com/robots?q=github.com%2Fsettings" curl "https://tools.nexayori.com/robots?q=github.com%2Fsettings&format=json"
| q | URL to test (domain = home page) |
| ua | Crawler name (default Googlebot) |
| format | text (default for curl), json, or html |
Questions
Does robots.txt keep a page out of Google?
No: it stops crawling, not indexing. A blocked page can still appear (without a description) if other sites link to it. Use a noindex tag, and don’t block the page, to keep it out.
What if there’s no robots.txt?
Everything may be crawled. That’s fine; add one mainly to list your sitemap.
Do AI crawlers obey robots.txt?
The major ones listed here say they do. Google-Extended controls Google’s AI training without affecting search.
Limitations
- Follows the standard (RFC 9309) as Google implements it; some crawlers differ slightly.
- Shows the first 400 lines of the file.