🤖 Analyze and Test robots.txt Files on a Large Scale

Even though they are tiny in size, robots.txt files contain potent instructions that can block major sections of your site, which is what they are supposed to do. Only sometimes you might make the mistake of blocking the wrong section.

So it is very important to check if certain pages (or groups of pages) are blocked for a certain user-agent by a certain robots.txt file. Ideally, you would want to run the same check for all possible user-agents. Even more ideally, you want to be able to run the check for a large number of pages with every possible combination with user-agents.

To get the robots.txt file into an easily readable format, you can use the robotstxt_to_df() function to get it in a DataFrame.

import advertools as adv

amazon = adv.robotstxt_to_df('https://www.amazon.com/robots.txt')
amazon

directive

content

etag

robotstxt_last_modified

robotstxt_url

download_date

0

User-agent

*

"a850165d925db701988daf7ead7492d3"

2021-10-28 17:51:39+00:00

https://www.amazon.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:33:03.200689+00:00

1

Disallow

/exec/obidos/account-access-login

"a850165d925db701988daf7ead7492d3"

2021-10-28 17:51:39+00:00

https://www.amazon.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:33:03.200689+00:00

2

Disallow

/exec/obidos/change-style

"a850165d925db701988daf7ead7492d3"

2021-10-28 17:51:39+00:00

https://www.amazon.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:33:03.200689+00:00

3

Disallow

/exec/obidos/flex-sign-in

"a850165d925db701988daf7ead7492d3"

2021-10-28 17:51:39+00:00

https://www.amazon.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:33:03.200689+00:00

4

Disallow

/exec/obidos/handle-buy-box

"a850165d925db701988daf7ead7492d3"

2021-10-28 17:51:39+00:00

https://www.amazon.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:33:03.200689+00:00

...

...

...

...

...

...

...

146

Disallow

/hp/video/mystuff

"a850165d925db701988daf7ead7492d3"

2021-10-28 17:51:39+00:00

https://www.amazon.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:33:03.200689+00:00

147

Disallow

/gp/video/profiles

"a850165d925db701988daf7ead7492d3"

2021-10-28 17:51:39+00:00

https://www.amazon.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:33:03.200689+00:00

148

Disallow

/hp/video/profiles

"a850165d925db701988daf7ead7492d3"

2021-10-28 17:51:39+00:00

https://www.amazon.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:33:03.200689+00:00

149

User-agent

EtaoSpider

"a850165d925db701988daf7ead7492d3"

2021-10-28 17:51:39+00:00

https://www.amazon.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:33:03.200689+00:00

150

Disallow

/

"a850165d925db701988daf7ead7492d3"

2021-10-28 17:51:39+00:00

https://www.amazon.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:33:03.200689+00:00

The returned DataFrame contains columns for directives, their content, the URL of the robots.txt file, as well as the date it was downloaded.

  • directive: The main commands. Allow, Disallow, Sitemap, Crawl-delay, User-agent, and so on.

  • content: The details of each of the directives.

  • robotstxt_last_modified: The date when the robots.txt file was last modified, if provided (according the response header Last-modified).

  • etag: The entity tag of the response header, if provided.

  • robotstxt_url: The URL of the robots.txt file.

  • download_date: The date and time when the file was downloaded.

Alternatively, you can provide a list of robots URLs if you want to download them all in one go. This might be interesting if:

  • You are analyzing an industry and want to keep an eye on many different websites.

  • You are analyzing a website with many sub-domains, and want to get all the robots files together.

  • You are trying to understand a company that has many websites under different domains and sub-domains.

In this case you simply provide a list of URLs instead of a single one.

robots_urls = ['https://www.google.com/robots.txt',
               'https://twitter.com/robots.txt',
               'https://facebook.com/robots.txt']

googtwfb = adv.robotstxt_to_df(robots_urls)

# How many lines does each robots file have?
googtwfb.groupby('robotstxt_url')['directive'].count()
robotstxt_url
https://facebook.com/robots.txt      541
https://twitter.com/robots.txt       108
https://www.google.com/robots.txt    289
Name: directive, dtype: int64
# Display the first five rows of each of the robots files:
googtwfb.groupby('robotstxt_url').head()

directive

content

robotstxt_last_modified

robotstxt_url

download_date

0

User-agent

*

2022-02-07 22:30:00+00:00

https://www.google.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:52:13.375724+00:00

1

Disallow

/search

2022-02-07 22:30:00+00:00

https://www.google.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:52:13.375724+00:00

2

Allow

/search/about

2022-02-07 22:30:00+00:00

https://www.google.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:52:13.375724+00:00

3

Allow

/search/static

2022-02-07 22:30:00+00:00

https://www.google.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:52:13.375724+00:00

4

Allow

/search/howsearchworks

2022-02-07 22:30:00+00:00

https://www.google.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:52:13.375724+00:00

289

comment

Google Search Engine Robot

NaT

https://twitter.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:52:13.461815+00:00

290

comment

==========================

NaT

https://twitter.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:52:13.461815+00:00

291

User-agent

Googlebot

NaT

https://twitter.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:52:13.461815+00:00

292

Allow

/?_escaped_fragment_

NaT

https://twitter.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:52:13.461815+00:00

293

Allow

/*?lang=

NaT

https://twitter.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:52:13.461815+00:00

397

comment

Notice: Collection of data on Facebook through automated means is

NaT

https://facebook.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:52:13.474456+00:00

398

comment

prohibited unless you have express written permission from Facebook

NaT

https://facebook.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:52:13.474456+00:00

399

comment

and may only be conducted for the limited purpose contained in said

NaT

https://facebook.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:52:13.474456+00:00

400

comment

permission.

NaT

https://facebook.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:52:13.474456+00:00

401

comment

See: http://www.facebook.com/apps/site_scraping_tos_terms.php

NaT

https://facebook.com/robots.txt

2022-02-11 19:52:13.474456+00:00

Bulk robots.txt Tester

This tester is designed to work on a large scale. The robotstxt_test() function runs a test for a given robots.txt file, checking which of the provided user-agents can fetch which of the provided URLs, paths, or patterns.

import advertools as adv
adv.robotstxt_test(
    robotstxt_url='https://www.amazon.com/robots.txt',
    user_agents=['Googlebot', 'baiduspider', 'Bingbot'],
    urls=['/', '/hello', '/some-page.html'])

As a result, you get a DataFrame with a row for each combination of (user-agent, URL) indicating whether or not that particular user-agent can fetch the given URL.

Some reasons why you might want to do that:

  • SEO Audits: Especially for large websites with many URL patterns, and many rules for different user-agents.

  • Developer or site owner about to make large changes

  • Interest in strategies of certain companies

User-agents

In reality there are only two groups of user-agents that you need to worry about:

  • User-agents listed in the robots.txt file: For each one of those you need to check whether or not they are blocked from fetching a certain URL (or pattern).

  • * all other user-agents: The * includes all other user-agents, so checking the rules that apply to it should take care of the rest.

robots.txt Testing Approach

  1. Get the robots.txt file that you are interested in

  2. Extract the user-agents from it

  3. Specify the URLs you are interested in testing

  4. Run the robotstxt_test() function

fb_robots = adv.robotstxt_to_df('https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt')
fb_robots

directive

content

robotstxt_url

download_date

0

comment

Notice: Collection of data on Facebook through automated means is

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

2022-02-12 00:48:58.951053+00:00

1

comment

prohibited unless you have express written permission from Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

2022-02-12 00:48:58.951053+00:00

2

comment

and may only be conducted for the limited purpose contained in said

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

2022-02-12 00:48:58.951053+00:00

3

comment

permission.

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

2022-02-12 00:48:58.951053+00:00

4

comment

See: http://www.facebook.com/apps/site_scraping_tos_terms.php

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

2022-02-12 00:48:58.951053+00:00

...

...

...

...

...

536

Allow

/ajax/pagelet/generic.php/PagePostsSectionPagelet

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

2022-02-12 00:48:58.951053+00:00

537

Allow

/careers/

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

2022-02-12 00:48:58.951053+00:00

538

Allow

/safetycheck/

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

2022-02-12 00:48:58.951053+00:00

539

User-agent

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

2022-02-12 00:48:58.951053+00:00

540

Disallow

/

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

2022-02-12 00:48:58.951053+00:00

Now that we have downloaded the file, we can easily extract the list of user-agents that it contains.

fb_useragents = (fb_robots
                 [fb_robots['directive']=='User-agent']
                 ['content'].drop_duplicates()
                .tolist())
fb_useragents
['Applebot',
 'baiduspider',
 'Bingbot',
 'Discordbot',
 'facebookexternalhit',
 'Googlebot',
 'Googlebot-Image',
 'ia_archiver',
 'LinkedInBot',
 'msnbot',
 'Naverbot',
 'Pinterestbot',
 'seznambot',
 'Slurp',
 'teoma',
 'TelegramBot',
 'Twitterbot',
 'Yandex',
 'Yeti',
 '*']

Quite a long list!

As a small and quick test, I'm interested in checking the home page, a random profile page (/bbc), groups and hashtags pages.

urls_to_test = ['/', '/bbc', '/groups', '/hashtag/']
fb_test = robotstxt_test('https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt',
                         fb_useragents, urls_to_test)
fb_test

robotstxt_url

user_agent

url_path

can_fetch

0

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

*

/

False

1

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

*

/bbc

False

2

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

*

/groups

False

3

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

*

/hashtag/

False

4

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

Applebot

/

True

...

...

...

...

75

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

seznambot

/hashtag/

True

76

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

teoma

/

True

77

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

teoma

/bbc

True

78

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

teoma

/groups

True

79

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

teoma

/hashtag/

True

For twenty user-agents and four URLs each, we received a total of eighty test results. You can immediately see that all user-agents not listed (denoted by * are not allowed to fetch any of the provided URLs).

Let's see who is and who is not allowed to fetch the home page.

fb_test.query('url_path== "/"')

robotstxt_url

user_agent

url_path

can_fetch

0

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

*

/

False

4

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

Applebot

/

True

8

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

Bingbot

/

True

12

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

Discordbot

/

False

16

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

Googlebot

/

True

20

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

Googlebot-Image

/

True

24

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

LinkedInBot

/

False

28

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

Naverbot

/

True

32

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

Pinterestbot

/

False

36

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

Slurp

/

True

40

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

TelegramBot

/

False

44

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

Twitterbot

/

True

48

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

Yandex

/

True

52

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

Yeti

/

True

56

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

baiduspider

/

True

60

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

facebookexternalhit

/

False

64

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

ia_archiver

/

False

68

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

msnbot

/

True

72

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

seznambot

/

True

76

https://www.facebook.com/robots.txt

teoma

/

True

I'll leave it to you to figure out why LinkedIn and Pinterest are not allowed to crawl the home page but Google and Apple are, because I have no clue!

robotstxt_test(robotstxt_url, user_agents, urls)[source]

Given a robotstxt_url check which of the user_agents is allowed to fetch which of the urls.

All the combinations of user_agents and urls will be checked and the results returned in one DataFrame.

>>> robotstxt_test('https://facebook.com/robots.txt',
...                user_agents=['*', 'Googlebot', 'Applebot'],
...                urls=['/', '/bbc', '/groups', '/hashtag/'])
                      robotstxt_url user_agent   url_path  can_fetch
0   https://facebook.com/robots.txt          *          /      False
1   https://facebook.com/robots.txt          *       /bbc      False
2   https://facebook.com/robots.txt          *    /groups      False
3   https://facebook.com/robots.txt          *  /hashtag/      False
4   https://facebook.com/robots.txt   Applebot          /       True
5   https://facebook.com/robots.txt   Applebot       /bbc       True
6   https://facebook.com/robots.txt   Applebot    /groups       True
7   https://facebook.com/robots.txt   Applebot  /hashtag/      False
8   https://facebook.com/robots.txt  Googlebot          /       True
9   https://facebook.com/robots.txt  Googlebot       /bbc       True
10  https://facebook.com/robots.txt  Googlebot    /groups       True
11  https://facebook.com/robots.txt  Googlebot  /hashtag/      False
Parameters:
  • robotstxt_url (url) -- The URL of robotx.txt file

  • user_agents (str,list) -- One or more user agents

  • urls (str,list) -- One or more paths (relative) or URLs (absolute) to check

Return DataFrame robotstxt_test_df:

robotstxt_to_df(robotstxt_url, output_file=None)[source]

Download the contents of robotstxt_url into a DataFrame

You can also use it to download multiple robots files by passing a list of URLs.

>>> robotstxt_to_df('https://www.twitter.com/robots.txt')
     directive content                       robotstxt_url                     download_date
0   User-agent           *  https://www.twitter.com/robots.txt      2020-09-27 21:57:23.702814+00:00
1     Disallow           /  https://www.twitter.com/robots.txt      2020-09-27 21:57:23.702814+00:00
>>> robotstxt_to_df(['https://www.google.com/robots.txt',
...                  'https://www.twitter.com/robots.txt'])
       directive                                 content        robotstxt_last_modified                            robotstxt_url                         download_date
0     User-agent                                       *      2021-01-11 21:00:00+00:00        https://www.google.com/robots.txt      2021-01-16 14:08:50.087985+00:00
1       Disallow                                 /search      2021-01-11 21:00:00+00:00        https://www.google.com/robots.txt      2021-01-16 14:08:50.087985+00:00
2          Allow                           /search/about      2021-01-11 21:00:00+00:00        https://www.google.com/robots.txt      2021-01-16 14:08:50.087985+00:00
3          Allow                          /search/static      2021-01-11 21:00:00+00:00        https://www.google.com/robots.txt      2021-01-16 14:08:50.087985+00:00
4          Allow                  /search/howsearchworks      2021-01-11 21:00:00+00:00        https://www.google.com/robots.txt      2021-01-16 14:08:50.087985+00:00
283   User-agent                     facebookexternalhit      2021-01-11 21:00:00+00:00        https://www.google.com/robots.txt      2021-01-16 14:08:50.087985+00:00
284        Allow                                 /imgres      2021-01-11 21:00:00+00:00        https://www.google.com/robots.txt      2021-01-16 14:08:50.087985+00:00
285      Sitemap      https://www.google.com/sitemap.xml      2021-01-11 21:00:00+00:00        https://www.google.com/robots.txt      2021-01-16 14:08:50.087985+00:00
286   User-agent                                       *                            NaT       https://www.twitter.com/robots.txt      2021-01-16 14:08:50.468588+00:00
287     Disallow                                       /                            NaT       https://www.twitter.com/robots.txt      2021-01-16 14:08:50.468588+00:00

For research purposes and if you want to download more than ~500 files, you might want to use output_file to save results as they are downloaded. The file extension should be ".jl", and robots files are appended to that file as soon as they are downloaded, in case you lose your connection, or maybe your patience!

>>> robotstxt_to_df(['https://example.com/robots.txt',
...                  'https://example.com/robots.txt',
...                  'https://example.com/robots.txt'],
...                 output_file='robots_output_file.jl')

To open the file as a DataFrame:

>>> import pandas as pd
>>> robotsfiles_df = pd.read_json('robots_output_file.jl', lines=True)
Parameters:
  • robotstxt_url (url) -- One or more URLs of the robots.txt file(s)

  • output_file (str) -- Optional file path to save the robots.txt files, mainly useful for downloading > 500 files. The files are appended as soon as they are downloaded. Only ".jl" extensions are supported.

Returns DataFrame robotstxt_df:

A DataFrame containing directives, their content, the URL and time of download