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The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect Robots.txt for Blogger SEO

Boost your Blogger SEO! Get the perfect robots.txt code to block duplicate content, save crawl budget, and guide Google. Copy, paste, and optimize in 5 minutes.

Introduction

When it comes to optimizing your Blogger (Blogspot) blog for search engines, you've probably heard about keywords, backlinks, and quality content.But there's a small, powerful file often overlooked that acts as the gatekeeper for your site: robots.txt.

Getting this file right is crucial. A bad robots.txt can hide your entire blog from Google, while an optimized one can guide search engines to your best content, save your "crawl budget," and prevent duplicate content issues that plague many Blogger sites.

In this comprehensive guide, we will demystify robots.txt and provide you with the perfect, copy-paste-ready code for your Blogger blog.

1. What is a Robots.txt File?

A robots.txt file is a simple text file located in the root directory of your website (e.g., www.oaoy.net/robots.txt). Its purpose is to give instructions to web robots (also known as crawlers or spiders), like Googlebot or Bingbot, about which pages or files on your site they should not crawl.

Think of it as a set of rules for visitors. It doesn't force them to obey—malicious bots will ignore it—but reputable bots (like those from Google, Bing, and other search engines) will always check this file first before crawling your site.

Important Note: robots.txt is about managing crawling, not indexing. A page disallowed in robots.txt can still be indexed if it's linked to from other sites. If you want to guarantee a page doesn't appear in search results, you should use a noindex meta tag.

2. Is a Robots.txt File Necessary for Blogger?

Technically, no. But for optimal SEO, yes, it is.

By default, Blogger provides a virtual robots.txt file for every blog. You can see yours by typing yourblog.blogspot.com/robots.txt into your browser.

The default file is okay, but it's not perfect. The biggest problem with Blogger's structure is that it generates many low-value or duplicate content pages. These include:

  • Search query pages (e.g., .../search?q=my-query)
  • Label (tag) pages (e.g., .../search/label/SEO)
  • Date archive pages (e.g., .../2023/10/)
  • Mobile version URL parameters (e.g., .../mypost.html?m=1)

If Google wastes time crawling all these useless pages (wasting your "crawl budget"), it has less time to find and index your important new blog posts. A custom robots.txt file solves this by blocking these low-value pages.

3. How to Create and Edit Your Robots.txt File in Blogger

Blogger makes it easy to override the default file with your own custom version.

  1. Log in to your Blogger Dashboard.
  2. Go to Settings in the left-hand menu.
  3. Scroll down to the "Crawlers and indexing" section.
  4. Find "Enable custom robots.txt" and toggle it On (it will turn blue).
  5. Click on the "Custom robots.txt" text that appears just below it.
  6. A text box will pop up. This is where you will paste your new, optimized code.
  7. Click Save.

That's it! Blogger will now serve your custom file to all search engines.

4. The Language of Robots.txt: What the Code Means

A robots.txt file is made of simple rules. Let's understand the vocabulary.

User-agent: This specifies which bot the rule applies to.

  • User-agent: * means the rule applies to all bots.
  • User-agent: Googlebot means the rule only applies to Google's main crawler.
  • User-agent: Mediapartners-Google applies to the Google AdSense bot.

Disallow: This is the "Do Not Enter" command. Any URL path following this command will be blocked.

  • Disallow: /search blocks the /search directory and everything inside it.

Allow: This is the "You Can Enter" command. It is used to create exceptions to a Disallow rule.

  • For example, Disallow: / (block everything) followed by Allow: /homepage (but allow the homepage).

Sitemap: This directive tells search engines where to find your XML sitemap, which is a map of all the pages you want them to crawl. This is highly recommended.

* (Wildcard): A "wildcard" character that matches any sequence of characters.

  • Disallow: /*?m=1 blocks any URL that contains ?m=1.

$ (End of line): This character signifies the end of a URL.

  • Disallow: /*.json$ blocks any URL that ends with .json.

5. The Perfect Robots.txt for Blogger SEO

Here is the optimized, copy-and-paste code. Remember to replace www.oaoy.net with your actual blog's subdomain.

# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
# Optimized Robots.txt for Blogger/Blogspot
# ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

# Allow Google AdSense bot to crawl the site to serve relevant ads.
User-agent: Mediapartners-Google
Disallow:

# Apply the following rules to all other bots (Googlebot, Bingbot, etc.)
User-agent: *

# Block Blogger's specific dynamic and duplicate content URLs
Disallow: /search
Disallow: /search/label/*?*
Disallow: /*?updated-min=
Disallow: /*?updated-max=
Disallow: /*&updated-min=
Disallow: /*&updated-max=
Disallow: /*.html?m=1
Disallow: /*.html?m=0
Disallow: /feeds/
Disallow: /comments/default

# Allow all other content (this is implied, but good to be explicit)
Allow: /

# Point crawlers to the correct sitemap
Sitemap: https://www.oaoy.net/sitemap.xml

In-Depth Analysis: Why This Code is Perfect for Blogger
Let's break down the code above line by line to understand its full power.

User-agent: Mediapartners-Google 
Disallow:
  • Translation: "Hey, Google AdSense bot! You are allowed to crawl everything."
  • Why: If you use AdSense, this bot needs to read your page content to serve relevant ads. Leaving Disallow: blank means "disallow nothing."
User-agent: *
  • Translation: "These next rules apply to all other bots in the world."
  • Why: This is a catch-all for Googlebot, Bingbot, Yandex, etc.
Disallow: /search
  • Translation: "Do not crawl the base search page or any internal search result pages (e.g., .../search?q=query)."
  • Why: These pages are low-quality, "thin content" and provide no unique value to search users. Indexing them is bad for SEO.
Disallow: /search/label/*?*
  • Translation: "Do not crawl any label (tag) page that has parameters."
  • Why: This is a precise rule. It allows Google to index your main label pages (e.g., /search/label/Technology), which can be good for navigation. But it blocks filtered or sorted versions of those pages (e.g., .../Technology?updated-min=...&max-results=5), which are duplicate content.
Disallow: /*?updated-min=
Disallow: /*?updated-max=
Disallow: /*&updated-min=
Disallow: /*&updated-max=
  • Translation: "Block any URL that contains these date-range parameters."
  • Why: These are parameters Blogger uses for archive pages. They create endless combinations of duplicate content. Blocking them is essential.
Disallow: /*.html?m=1
Disallow: /*.html?m=0
  • Translation: "Block all post URLs that end in ?m=1 (mobile version) or ?m=0 (desktop version)."
  • Why: This is the most important rule for Blogger SEO. Blogger serves the same post on two URLs (one with ?m=1 and one without). This creates massive duplicate content. While Google is good at canonicalization, explicitly blocking these parameters ensures that only the main, "clean" URL (e.g., .../mypost.html) gets indexed.
Disallow: /feeds/
Disallow: /comments/default
  • Translation: "Do not crawl the RSS/Atom feed pages or the default comment feed."
  • Why: These are for feed readers, not for search engine indexing.
Sitemap: https://www.oaoy.net/sitemap.xml
  • Translation: "Hey bots, if you're confused, just go here to find a clean list of all my important pages."
  • Why: This helps search engines discover your posts and pages (the ones you want them to find) much faster. Don't forget to change www.oaoy.net!

Conclusion

While the robots.txt file is small, its impact on your Blogger blog's SEO is enormous. By taking 5 minutes to switch from Blogger's default file to this optimized version, you are taking a massive step forward. You are telling search engines exactly what to focus on (your content) and what to ignore (Blogger's duplicate-content clutter).

Go update your robots.txt file now and give your blog the technical SEO foundation it deserves!

The Ultimate Guide to the Perfect Robots.txt for Blogger SEO