How to Use Rank Math’s Robots.txt Tester Tool

Have you ever wondered how search engines decide which pages to crawl and which to ignore? That’s where the robots.txt file comes into play. If your website isn’t set up properly, search engines might end up crawling unnecessary pages, missing important ones, or even wasting your crawl budget.

I’ve been using Rank Math’s Robots.txt Tester Tool to ensure my site is correctly optimized, and trust me, it makes a big difference! In this guide, I’ll walk you through how to use this tool to improve your SEO, fix crawling issues, and optimize your site’s indexing.

What is the Robots.txt Tester Tool?

The Robots.txt Tester Tool in Rank Math is a built-in feature that allows website owners to check whether their robots.txt file is correctly configured. This tool ensures that search engine crawlers can access important pages while restricting them from unnecessary or private sections of your website.

Why is Robots.txt Important for SEO?

The robots.txt file plays a crucial role in SEO by:

• Controlling which pages search engines can crawl.
• Preventing the indexing of duplicate or sensitive content.
• Improving crawl budget efficiency by blocking unimportant pages.
• Protecting private or restricted areas of your site from being indexed.

By correctly configuring your robots.txt file, you ensure that search engines focus only on valuable pages, leading to better rankings and visibility.

How to Use Rank Math’s Robots.txt Tester Tool

Step 1: Navigate to the Rank Math Robots.txt tester tool [click here].

Step 2: Enter the website URL of which you want to test the robots.txt file, then there’s an option to select the user agent which means selecting the search engine bot, well you can leave it as default. Then simply click on the Test button.

That’s all, the tool will scan the robots.txt file of the website you have entered and share the scan results whether the file has some issues or not [as you can see in the below image].

Not only this, you can edit the robots.txt file by clicking the Editor toggle on the top right corner.

Also, you can download the edited robots.txt file by clicking the download icon button on the top left corner. [as you can see in the below image]

So this is how you can easily test whether your robots.txt file is accurate or not, and if it’s not then you can edit and fix that.

And if you’re using the Rank Math SEO plugin, then you can simply copy the robots.txt code and paste it into the robots.txt settings of your WordPress site.

How to do that? It’s easy.

Just open your WordPress dashboard, and go to Rank Math’s General settings tab.

Then go to the robots.txt tab.

Now here you can paste your robots.txt code,

and after that just click the save changes button to save it. That’s all.

If you are not using the Rank Math SEO plugin for your WordPress website then you are missing many things, I have shared a detailed article on it so do check out my Rank Math Review.

Best Practices to Improve SEO Using Robots.txt

To get the most out of your robots.txt file and boost your SEO, follow these best practices:

1. Block Duplicate and Low-Value Pages

Some pages don’t add value to search engines and should be blocked to prevent unnecessary crawling. These include:

• Search result pages: /search/
• Tag and category archives: /tag/, /category/
• Login and admin pages: /wp-admin/

This prevents search engines from wasting crawl budgets on irrelevant pages and ensures they focus on valuable content instead.

2. Allow Important Assets Like CSS & JavaScript

Search engines need access to CSS and JavaScript files to render your pages correctly. If you block them, your site may not display properly in search results. Avoid rules like this:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-content/
Disallow: /wp-includes/

Instead, allow essential files for better indexing.

3. Use the Sitemap Directive to Help Search Engines Find Content

Adding your XML sitemap to robots.txt helps search engines discover and crawl your site efficiently. Include this at the bottom of your file:

Sitemap: https://example.com/sitemap.xml

This ensures that search engines index all your important pages faster.

4. Be Specific When Blocking Pages

Instead of blocking entire directories, specify exactly what you don’t want indexed. For example, instead of:

Disallow: /private/

Use:

Disallow: /private-files/
Disallow: /admin-only/

This avoids unintentionally blocking valuable content.

5. Regularly Test Your Robots.txt File

Use Rank Math’s Robots.txt Tester and Google Search Console to check for errors. If a page you want to be indexed is blocked, update the file and test again.

6. Avoid Blocking Key Pages Accidentally

Never block essential pages like your homepage, blog posts, or important landing pages. Before saving your robots.txt, double-check that no high-value URLs are restricted.

Common Robots.txt Mistakes That Hurt SEO

Blocking important pages:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /

(This blocks the entire website from being indexed.)

Blocking CSS & JavaScript files:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-includes/
Disallow: /wp-content/

(This can break your website’s layout in search results.)

Not including a sitemap:

User-agent: *
Disallow: /wp-admin/

(A missing sitemap makes it harder for search engines to discover all your pages.

Conclusion

Rank Math’s Robots.txt Tester Tool makes it easy to identify errors, optimize crawl settings, and improve SEO rankings. I’ve personally found it super useful for making sure search engines focus only on the pages that truly matter. If you haven’t checked your robots.txt file in a while, now is the perfect time to do it!