Robots Editor Pro: Free WordPress robots.txt Plugin

About the Robots Editor Pro WordPress Plugin

Robots Editor Pro is a WordPress plugin that places the power of robots.txt management directly in your hands. This is not just a simple editor; it is a smart tool that integrates with WordPress core, WooCommerce, and major SEO plugins like O2 Digital Sitemap Generator, Yoast SEO, Rank Math, SEOPress, and AIOSEO. It ensures your website follows SEO best practices right out of the box. Still, it provides the flexibility to customize your file as needed.

The Importance of an Accurate robots.txt File

An accurate robots.txt file is important for effective SEO. Perhaps you did not realize, but this small text file helps search engines prioritize what to crawl on your site. By disallowing access to pages like login portals, checkout pages, or private account areas, you can prevent them from appearing in search results and save your crawl budget for more important content. Moreover, a correctly configured robots.txt file ensures that search engines discover your real sitemaps, allowing them to efficiently index your valuable pages and content.

How to Use the Robots Editor Pro Plugin

Using Robots Editor Pro is straightforward. We designed the workflow to be intuitive, so you can manage your robots.txt file with confidence.

Installing and Activating

You can install the plugin by uploading it to your wp-content/plugins/ directory or by searching for it in the WordPress admin. After activation, it is ready to use.

Opening the Editor

Navigating to Settings → Robots.txt Editor in your WordPress dashboard will open the editor. You will see your current robots.txt content loaded and ready for review.

Checking File Status

The “File Status” section offers a quick overview, showing if a physical file exists, whether it is writable, and when it was last updated. If no physical file is present, you can simply enable the virtual robots.txt option to get started.

Inserting Best-Practice Defaults

With a single click on the “Insert best-practice defaults” button, the plugin adds recommended rules for WordPress and WooCommerce, along with your automatically detected sitemap index. After all, this feature helps ensure your site is SEO-ready without any manual work.

Detecting and Fixing Sitemaps

The “Detect sitemaps & fix Sitemap line” button is a truly powerful tool. It scans your website’s configuration to automatically find the correct sitemap URL and inserts it into your file, removing any old or non-existent sitemap lines in the process.

Key Features of Robots Editor Pro

We built Robots Editor Pro with a comprehensive set of features to meet the needs of every website owner, from beginners to experienced developers. The tool offers a professional, user-friendly interface combined with advanced capabilities.

Editing Capabilities

The plugin allows you to directly edit and save your website’s robots.txt file. Regardless of whether the file is writable on your server, our plugin can serve a virtual robots.txt instead, ensuring you always have full control. We can even read an existing physical file and load it into the editor for you, providing a seamless experience.

Best-Practice Defaults

We understand that you are busy, so we’ve included automated, SEO-friendly rules for WordPress. The plugin automatically adds rules to allow necessary files while blocking sensitive ones like /readme.html and /wp-admin/. For WooCommerce stores, we detect and automatically protect pages such as /cart/, /checkout/, and /my-account/.

Sitemap Auto-Detection

It is important that search engines can find your real sitemap index, not an outdated or incorrect one. Robots Editor Pro automatically detects the actual sitemap index your site is using, working with major SEO plugins and WordPress core. It’s a smart system that works even on tricky hosting providers where standard methods fail.

Editor User Interface

Our simple user interface is located in the WordPress settings menu. From there, you can switch between serving a virtual robots.txt or editing the physical file. The interface also includes one-click buttons to insert recommended defaults and to automatically detect and fix your sitemap lines, saving you time and effort.

Backup & Restore

Accidents can happen. We know this well, so our plugin automatically creates a backup each time you save. You can easily restore older versions with a single click, providing a safety net against accidental misconfigurations.

The Benefits of Using Robots Editor Pro

When you use Robots Editor Pro, you are giving your site a strategic advantage. Our plugin delivers a range of benefits that impact your site’s performance and security.

SEO Friendly

Our plugin ensures that search engines crawl only your most valuable pages, skipping secure, duplicate, or sensitive ones. This means your site’s crawl budget is used effectively, leading to better indexing and ranking.

Accurate Sitemaps

Your sitemap index is an important road map for search engines. Our tool guarantees that only your real sitemap is listed, preventing crawl errors and helping search engines understand your site’s structure accurately.

Enhanced Security

We block bots from accessing sensitive pages such as login and checkout areas. This simple step can improve your website’s security, regardless of the nature of your business.

Reliability

The plugin’s advanced detection methods allow it to work on tricky hosts, so you will never have to worry about your sitemap detection failing. It is a reliable solution for any website, in any environment.

Safe Editing

The built-in backup and restore system means you can always roll back any changes. You can experiment with different rules without the fear of misconfiguring your site and impacting its SEO.

Example of a Generated Robots.txt

This is an example of a clean, optimized robots.txt file automatically generated by our plugin.

# Robots.txt generated by Robots Editor Pro
# Best-practice defaults for WordPress (+WooCommerce if detected).

User-agent: *
Allow: /wp-admin/admin-ajax.php
Disallow: /wp-admin/
Disallow: /readme.html
Disallow: /license.txt

Disallow: /cart/
Disallow: /checkout/
Disallow: /my-account/
Disallow: /order-pay/
Disallow: /order-received/
Disallow: /*add-to-cart=*
Disallow: /wc-api/
Disallow: /my-account/orders/
Disallow: /my-account/edit-account/
Disallow: /my-account/lost-password/
Disallow: /login/
Disallow: /logout/
Disallow: /sign-in/
Disallow: /sign-up/
Disallow: /register/
Disallow: /account/
Disallow: /wishlist/
Disallow: /wp-login.php

Sitemap: https://yoursite.com/sitemap_index.xml