Can robots.txt block SEs from specific countries?

[oleshka]

Is it possible to create a robots.txt file that will exclude all Australian based search engines (ie, google.com.au, au.bing.com, au.yahoo.com, etc) from indexing my website? If so, how would I do that?

Conversely, can you create a robots.txt file that ONLY allows Australian based search engines (such as the ones listed above) from indexing a site? And even more specifically, is it possible to create a robots.txt file that allows only search engines from Australia to index just one subdirectory of a site, while the rest of the site is open to search engines from any country?

[Charter]

User-agent: Australian based search engines bot
Disallow: /

[a3web]

Yes, it is possible to create a robots.txt file to exclude or allow specific search engines from indexing your website.

To exclude Australian-based search engines from indexing your entire website, you can use the following rules in your robots.txt file:

User-agent: googlebot
Disallow: /

User-agent: bingbot
Disallow: /

User-agent: yahoo
Disallow: /

This will prevent search engines like Google, Bing, and Yahoo from indexing any part of your website.

On the other hand, if you want to allow only Australian-based search engines to index your website while excluding others, you can use the following rules:

User-agent: googlebot
Disallow: /

User-agent: bingbot
Disallow: /

User-agent: yahoo
Disallow: /

User-agent: *
Allow: /

With these rules, you're blocking all search engines except for the ones listed above, effectively allowing only the specified Australian search engines to index your site.

If you want to allow only Australian search engines to index a specific subdirectory while keeping the rest of the site open to all search engines, you can use the same rules as above and add an exception for the specific subdirectory you want to be indexed. Here's an example:

User-agent: googlebot
Disallow: /

User-agent: bingbot
Disallow: /

User-agent: yahoo
Disallow: /

User-agent: *
Disallow: /specific-subdirectory/

In this case, all search engines are blocked from indexing the "specific-subdirectory," while the rest of your website remains accessible to all search engines.

Here's some additional information on robots.txt files:

1. Robots.txt Syntax: The robots.txt file follows a specific syntax. Each line in the file typically contains two parts: the user-agent and the directive. The user-agent specifies which search engine or bot the rule applies to, while the directive indicates what actions are allowed or disallowed.

2. User-Agents: User-agents are the web crawlers or bots that visit your website to index its content. Some common user-agents include "Googlebot" for Google, "Bingbot" for Bing, and "Slurp" for Yahoo. You can specify rules for specific user-agents or use wildcards like "*" to apply rules to all bots.

3. Disallow Directive: The "Disallow" directive is used to tell search engines which parts of your website should not be crawled or indexed. For example, "Disallow: /private/" would prevent search engines from accessing any URLs within the "private" directory.

4. Allow Directive: The "Allow" directive is used to override any previous "Disallow" directives and allow access to specific content. It is often used in conjunction with "Disallow" to create exceptions for certain directories or files.

5. Multiple Rules: You can include multiple rules in a single robots.txt file, each relating to a specific user-agent. This allows you to customize crawling behavior for different search engines.

6. Location of Robots.txt: The robots.txt file should be placed at the root of your website (e.g., www.example.com/robots.txt). Search engines will automatically look for this file and follow the directives specified within it.

additional points about robots.txt files:

1. Comments: You can include comments in your robots.txt file to provide explanations or make notes. Comments start with a "#" symbol and everything after it on that line is ignored by search engines.

2. Sitemap Declaration: You can use the robots.txt file to declare the location of your XML sitemap(s) using the "Sitemap" directive. For example, "Sitemap: https://www.example.com/sitemap.xml". This helps search engines discover and crawl your website more efficiently.

3. Case Sensitivity: The directives in robots.txt files are case-sensitive. Ensure that you use the correct uppercase and lowercase letters for user-agents, directories, and files.

4. Disallowing Specific URLs: You can disallow specific URLs within a directory by listing them individually. For example, "Disallow: /private/page.html" would prevent search engines from accessing that specific page.

5. Wildcards: The "*" wildcard can be used in the middle or at the end of a path to match any characters. For instance, "Disallow: /images/*.jpg" would block all JPEG files within the "images" directory.

6. Subdomain-specific Rules: If your website has subdomains, you can create separate robots.txt files for each subdomain. Place the robots.txt file in the root directory of each subdomain.

7. Testing and Validation: Before deploying a robots.txt file, it's recommended to test and validate it using tools provided by search engines like Google Search Console or third-party validator tools. This ensures that the file is correctly formatted and has the intended effect.

[coolman]

The robots.txt checker can check you site's robots.txt file and meta tags.

[coolrays]

You may go to about/robots.txt to know about it.  It explains clearly the phenomenon used.