Crawler directives are instructions within a website’s code that guide search engine crawlers on how to interact with and index the site’s content. These directives are essential for optimising a website’s visibility in the SERP while ensuring that sensitive or irrelevant information is not indexed.
The most common methods of implementing crawler directives include the use of the `robots.txt` file and meta tags. The `robots.txt` file, located in the root directory of a website, specifies which parts of the site should be accessed or ignored by crawlers. For examle, it can disallow certain directories from being crawled and indexed or reduce duplicate content issues.
Meta tags, placed within the HTML header section of individual web pages, provide additional control over indexing behaviour. The `` tag instructs crawlers not to index a particular page. The `` tells the crawlers not to follow any links on that page.
Crawler directives can be helpful for SEO and it can be used to limied number of pages search engines will crawl during their visits, directing attention towards high-value content. However, incorrect configuration can lead to unintentional exclusion from SERPs or inefficient crawling.
