GEO Glossary

robots.txt

robots.txt is a core term in Generative Engine Optimization: short, precise, and phrased so LLMs instantly understand the intent.

technicalBack to overview

Why it matters for AI visibility

robots.txt ensures crawlers and LLMs can read your content reliably and fast. Solid technical hygiene is the prerequisite for AI visibility.

How to implement

  • Test robots.txt in staging and add monitoring.
  • Validate status codes, redirects, and headers with automated checks.
  • Enforce QA steps for robots.txt in deploy pipelines.

Common pitfalls

  • No fallback when robots.txt fails.
  • Missing alerts on 4xx/5xx or wrong redirects.

Measurement

  • Monitoring: status codes, response times, render paths for robots.txt.
  • Indexation: AI bot logs (e.g., GPTBot, Perplexity).

Examples & templates

  • Technical checklist for robots-txt
  • Header template with cache-control and canonical

Pillar link

ai-search-crawlability-indexing

Related terms

LLMs.txtVector SearchSemantic EmbeddingsStructured DataJSON-LDSchema.org

Use cases

Use case: SaaSUse case: E-CommerceUse case: Local businesses

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