{"article":{"id":41954183592851,"url":"https://webflow.zendesk.com/api/v2/help_center/en-us/articles/41954183592851.json","html_url":"https://help.webflow.com/hc/en-us/articles/41954183592851-Request-to-block-specific-bots-from-visiting-your-site","author_id":5504766911379,"comments_disabled":false,"draft":false,"promoted":false,"position":6,"vote_sum":0,"vote_count":0,"upvote_count":0,"downvote_count":0,"section_id":33776368446355,"created_at":"2025-06-06T20:01:16Z","updated_at":"2026-09-08T23:17:25Z","name":"Request to block specific bots from visiting your site","title":"Request to block specific bots from visiting your site","source_locale":"en-us","locale":"en-us","outdated":false,"outdated_locales":[],"edited_at":"2025-08-22T21:55:10Z","user_segment_id":null,"permission_group_id":1500000334941,"content_tag_ids":[],"label_names":[],"body":"<p data-prosemirror-content-type=\"node\" data-prosemirror-node-name=\"paragraph\" data-prosemirror-node-block=\"true\" data-pm-slice=\"1 1 []\">If you’d like to block bots from accessing your site or site pages, you can <a href=\"https://help.webflow.com/hc/en-us/articles/41954080897683-Set-robots-txt-rules\" data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"link\">generate a robots.txt file</a> which limits the pages that search engines crawl. However, you make want to take a more exact approach by blocking bad bots from your site or site pages. This is useful especially when bad bots are causing unwanted increases in your site’s bandwidth usage.</p><p data-prosemirror-content-type=\"node\" data-prosemirror-node-name=\"paragraph\" data-prosemirror-node-block=\"true\">Note that you’ll need a <a href=\"https://help.webflow.com/hc/en-us/articles/33961379128723\" data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"link\"><span class=\"wysiwyg-underline\">Site plan or paid Workspace plan</span></a> to add a robots.txt file to your site.</p><h3 id=\"h_01JX3DA3TQ5XRCB4XNHXSH0A97\" data-prosemirror-content-type=\"node\" data-prosemirror-node-name=\"heading\" data-prosemirror-node-block=\"true\">How to generate a <span data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"code\">robots.txt</span> file </h3><p data-prosemirror-content-type=\"node\" data-prosemirror-node-name=\"paragraph\" data-prosemirror-node-block=\"true\">A <span data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"code\">robots.txt</span> file instructs bots (also known as robots, spiders, or web crawlers) on how they should interact with your site. You can add rules to manage bot access to specific pages, folders, or your entire site. It's typically used to list pages or folders on your site that you don't want search engines to crawl or index.</p><p data-prosemirror-content-type=\"node\" data-prosemirror-node-name=\"paragraph\" data-prosemirror-node-block=\"true\">Just like a sitemap, the <span data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"code\">robots.txt</span> file lives in the top-level directory of your domain, e.g., <span data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"code\">yourdomain.com/robots.txt</span>.</p><p data-prosemirror-content-type=\"node\" data-prosemirror-node-name=\"paragraph\" data-prosemirror-node-block=\"true\">To generate a <span data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"code\">robots.txt</span> file:</p><ol data-prosemirror-content-type=\"node\" data-prosemirror-node-name=\"orderedList\" data-prosemirror-node-block=\"true\">\n<li data-prosemirror-content-type=\"node\" data-prosemirror-node-name=\"listItem\" data-prosemirror-node-block=\"true\">Go to <strong data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"strong\">Site settings</strong> &gt; <strong data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"strong\">SEO</strong> &gt; <strong data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"strong\">Indexing</strong>\n</li>\n<li data-prosemirror-content-type=\"node\" data-prosemirror-node-name=\"listItem\" data-prosemirror-node-block=\"true\">Add the <span data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"code\">robots.txt </span><a href=\"https://help.webflow.com/hc/en-us/articles/41954080897683-Set-robots-txt-rules#h_01JX3CX2FH0QM6RBG2TJQFD8DH\" data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"link\"><span class=\"wysiwyg-underline\">rule(s)</span></a> you want</li>\n<li data-prosemirror-content-type=\"node\" data-prosemirror-node-name=\"listItem\" data-prosemirror-node-block=\"true\">Click<strong data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"strong\"> Save</strong> and publish your site</li>\n</ol><div class=\"wf-callout-important\"><div class=\"wf-callout-text\">\n<p>Important</p>\n<p>Not all bots follow the rules specified in your <code>robots.txt</code> file, especially malicious or poorly configured ones. As a result, these bots may still access your site, including restricted folders and pages. <a href=\"https://radar.cloudflare.com/bots#verified-bots\">Search the list of good/verified bots</a>.</p>\n</div></div><h2 id=\"h_01JX3DA3TTN506R8YNCP439MQH\" data-prosemirror-content-type=\"node\" data-prosemirror-node-name=\"heading\" data-prosemirror-node-block=\"true\">How to block a bad bot</h2><ol data-prosemirror-content-type=\"node\" data-prosemirror-node-name=\"orderedList\" data-prosemirror-node-block=\"true\">\n<li data-prosemirror-content-type=\"node\" data-prosemirror-node-name=\"listItem\" data-prosemirror-node-block=\"true\">Go to <strong data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"strong\">Site settings</strong> &gt; <strong data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"strong\">SEO</strong> &gt; <strong data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"strong\">Indexing</strong> section</li>\n<li data-prosemirror-content-type=\"node\" data-prosemirror-node-name=\"listItem\" data-prosemirror-node-block=\"true\">Add the <span data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"code\">robots.txt</span> <a href=\"https://help.webflow.com/hc/en-us/articles/41954080897683-Set-robots-txt-rules#h_01JX3CX2FH0QM6RBG2TJQFD8DH\" data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"link\"><span class=\"wysiwyg-underline\">rule(s)</span></a> you want</li>\n<li data-prosemirror-content-type=\"node\" data-prosemirror-node-name=\"listItem\" data-prosemirror-node-block=\"true\">Click<strong data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"strong\"> Save changes</strong> and publish your site</li>\n</ol><p data-prosemirror-content-type=\"node\" data-prosemirror-node-name=\"paragraph\" data-prosemirror-node-block=\"true\">For instance, if you’re trying to block a bad bot named “ThisBot” your robots.txt file would look something like this:</p><pre class=\"wysiwyg-code-block\"><code class=\"language-plaintext\">User-agent: ThisBot\nDisallow: /\n\nSitemap: https://www.mysite.com/sitemap.xml</code></pre><p data-prosemirror-content-type=\"node\" data-prosemirror-node-name=\"paragraph\" data-prosemirror-node-block=\"true\"><a href=\"https://developers.google.com/search/docs/crawling-indexing/robots/create-robots-txt#create_rules\" data-prosemirror-content-type=\"mark\" data-prosemirror-mark-name=\"link\">Learn more about creating a robots.txt file</a>.</p><p data-prosemirror-content-type=\"node\" data-prosemirror-node-name=\"paragraph\" data-prosemirror-node-block=\"true\"> </p>","user_segment_ids":[]}}