Your site might be blocking Googlebot without you knowing. A single typo in robots.txt can hide pages from search results for weeks.
Google recrawls most sites every 3-7 days, but if your robots.txt file says “Disallow: /”, nothing gets indexed. You won’t rank, no matter how good your content is.
What Is a Robots.txt Tester?
Robots.txt Tester is a free browser-based tool that checks how search engine bots interpret your robots.txt file. It simulates crawler access so you see exactly which URLs are blocked or allowed.
You don’t need to sign up—it’s fast, no login needed, and runs in your browser.
Why It Matters for SEO
If Googlebot can’t reach key pages, they won’t appear in search. Simple as that. The real issue is that most people assume their robots.txt is working fine until traffic tanks.
Here’s what actually happens: you update your site structure, change paths, or deploy a new CMS, and the old robots.txt blocks everything under /blog or /product. Suddenly, 80% of your indexed pages disappear in 10 days.
One Shopify store lost $14K in organic sales over 3 weeks because a staging environment’s robots.txt went live, blocking all content. Google confirmed recrawl every 3-7 days, but that’s too slow when you’re bleeding traffic now.
You can’t fix what you can’t see—and most SEO tools won’t flag robots.txt errors unless you’re already dropping in rankings.
How to Use It
- Go to https://scrawl.tools/tools/robots-txt-tester (no login needed)
- Enter your URL and select a user-agent like Googlebot
- Click “Test” and see if the bot can access the page
That’s it. The tool pulls your live robots.txt and checks it in real time. No setup, no cost.
You can test multiple URLs fast—just change the path and retest. It’s free, and you’re not limited to a few checks per day.
What the Results Tell You
You’ll see a clear “Allowed” or “Blocked” result, along with the exact rule that caused the block. If it's blocked, you’ll know which line in robots.txt did it.
The tool also shows which user-agents the rule applies to. Some sites block mobile bots but allow desktop, or block AdsBot and wonder why PPC links don’t preview.
You’ll catch issues like unintended wildcards (Disallow: /*?) or legacy paths that still block content years after a redesign.
Google’s own tester works, but it’s buried in Search Console, requires login, and only checks one URL at a time. This tool is faster, simpler, and doesn’t need a Google account.
3 Mistakes Most People Make
- Forgetting case sensitivity: Disallow: /Admin/ won’t block /admin/, but it should. Most people miss that bots treat paths as case-sensitive.
- Using wildcards wrong: Allow: /images/.jpg$* looks smart, but if your server serves .JPG files, they're still blocked. The pattern won’t match uppercase extensions.
- Testing locally or on staging: robots.txt testers only work with live, publicly accessible files. Uploading a test version to your server and assuming it's safe? Here's what actually happens—you check the wrong file, deploy it, and block production.
Most people don’t test after a migration. They assume the old robots.txt still applies. But when you move from WordPress to React, your /wp-admin/ blocks are useless, and your new /app/ routes might need protection.
If you run a multi-region site, test with different user-agents. Some tools ignore regional bots like Googlebot-Asia. You think you’re indexed globally, but you’re not.
Use the XML Sitemap Validator after fixing robots.txt to confirm pages are now reachable. Blocked pages won’t show in sitemaps even if listed.
And if you’re chasing broken internal links from blocked redirects, the Redirect Chain Checker helps connect the dots.
Your robots.txt file isn’t set-and-forget. Test it every time you launch, migrate, or restructure.
Go now and check one critical page: https://scrawl.tools/tools/robots-txt-tester. It’s free, no login needed, and takes 30 seconds.
