Google Clarified Support For Robots.txt Fields With Tiny Change

Oct 8, 2024 - 7:11 am 1 by

Google Robot Spider

Google added eight or so words between brackets to clarify that fields that aren't explicitly listed in the robots.txt documentation aren't supported. Why did they do this? Google said because sometimes Google gets questions about it.

The words Google added were added to the syntax section of the robots.txt documentation and it reads:

(other fields such as crawl-delay aren't supported)

Here is the before and after, where the addition is highlighted in blue:

Doc Change Markup

Here is what it looks like now:

Syntax Google Robots Txt Clarify

As Jaskaran Singh, Silver Product Expert at Google in Webmaster/Search Console Community, wrote on LinkedIn, "If you're using unsupported fields, like crawl-delay, Google will ignore them. Be sure to follow these supported directives to ensure your site is crawled as intended." He added as "Pro Tip: Always use comments (#) for better readability, and ensure paths start with / to avoid errors."

Forum discussion at LinkedIn.

 

Popular Categories

The Pulse of the search community

Search Video Recaps

 
Video Details More Videos Subscribe to Videos

Most Recent Articles

Search Forum Recap

Daily Search Forum Recap: January 23, 2026

Jan 23, 2026 - 10:00 am
Search Video Recaps

Search News Buzz Video Recap: Google Search Double Heated, Personal Intelligence in AI Mode, ChatGPT Ads & Apple Siri Updates Coming

Jan 23, 2026 - 8:01 am
Google

Google Search Gains Personal Intelligence In AI Mode

Jan 23, 2026 - 7:51 am
Google

Google Falls Back To Featured Snippets When AI Overviews Don't Generate

Jan 23, 2026 - 7:41 am
Google Ads

Google Ads PMax Asset Group Editing Bug

Jan 23, 2026 - 7:31 am
Google Maps

Gemini Local Results Insights Into How Google Interprets Your Business

Jan 23, 2026 - 7:21 am
 
Previous Story: Google Merchant Center Adds Video Generation & Amazon MCF Integration