Creating a robots.txt file and a sitemap are essential steps in optimizing a website for search engines. The robots.txt file tells web crawlers which pages or sections of your site to crawl or not crawl, while a sitemap provides a structured list of URLs that helps search engines understand the organization of your content. Below, I'll provide a basic guide for generating robots.txt and a sitemap for a Blogger website.
Robots.txt for Blogger:
Create a New Page:
In your Blogger dashboard, go to Pages and create a new page named "robots.txt."
Set the page visibility to "Don't show" so that it doesn't appear on your blog.
Edit HTML:
Switch to the HTML mode while editing the page.
Add the following basic robots.txt rules, adjusting them based on your preferences and the structure of your blog.
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User-agent: *
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /archives
Disallow: /tag
This example disallows web crawlers from indexing search results, archives, and tags.
Publish:
Save and publish the page.
Configure Search Console:
Submit your blog's sitemap to Google Search Console for better visibility.
Sitemap for Blogger:
Blogger automatically generates a sitemap for your blog. To locate it:
Access Sitemap:
Go to your Blogger dashboard.
Navigate to Settings > Search preferences > Crawlers and indexing.
Find the Custom robots.txt section and click Edit.
Enable Custom robots.txt and save changes.
Retrieve Sitemap URL:
Once custom robots.txt is enabled, your sitemap URL is usually in the format: https://yourblog.blogspot.com/sitemap.xml.
Submit to Search Console:
Submit your sitemap URL to Google Search Console for indexing.
With these steps, you've created a basic robots.txt file and utilized Blogger's built-in sitemap functionality. Keep in mind that the specifics of your robots.txt may vary based on your blog's structure and content. Regularly check Google Search Console for insights and potential issues related to crawling and indexing.
