web dev//SEO//robots.txt//RFC 9309

The standard (2022) that formalizes the Robots Exclusion Protocol: how crawlers should interpret a robots.txt. It is like standardizing the "no advertising, thank you" sign for robots. Not a lock; a norm of courtesy, a protocol.

The standard (2022) that formalizes the Robots Exclusion Protocol: how crawlers should interpret a robots.txt. It is like standardizing the "no advertising, thank you" sign for robots. Not a lock; a norm of courtesy, a protocol.

It fixes what had been folklore since 1994: where the file lives, how User-agent groups match, how Allow and Disallow paths are resolved (longest match wins), size limits, and how to behave when the file is unreachable.

It says in so many words that the protocol is not a mechanism of authorization. A crawler that ignores it is rude, not blocked; anything that must stay private needs authentication.