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Robots.txt Validator (SEO + Crawling Rules Checker)

Validate robots.txt for one or more websites.

This Actor:

• Fetches /robots.txt for each unique host derived from startUrls
• Parses directive groups (User-agent, Allow, Disallow, Crawl-delay) and extracts Sitemap URLs
• Reports common errors/warnings (invalid lines, unknown directives, rules before User-agent, invalid sitemap URLs, etc.)
• Optionally tests a list of URLs against the selected User-Agent

Typical use cases

• SEO audits: verify Sitemap: entries and robots configuration
• QA checks: catch malformed directives before a production release
• Crawl planning: see whether important URLs are blocked for a given bot

Input

• startUrls (required): any URLs on the target site(s)
• userAgent (default *): used to choose the best matching group
• testUrls (optional): URLs to evaluate as allowed/disallowed for the chosen userAgent
• requestTimeoutSecs (default 15)
• maxRobotsTxtBytes (default 500000)
• fallbackToHttp (default true)
• saveRawRobotsTxt (default false): stores robots-<hostname>.txt in key-value store
• proxyConfiguration (optional)

Output

Dataset items (one per host)

Each item includes:

• hostname, robotsTxtUrl, statusCode, hasRobotsTxt, contentType, bytes, sha256
• selectedGroupUserAgents, crawlDelaySeconds, sitemapUrls
• errors[] and warnings[] (with code, message, line)
• testedUrls[] (if provided)

Key-value store

• REPORT (JSON): full per-host report array
• SUMMARY (JSON): run summary and counts
• robots-<hostname>.txt (text, optional): raw robots.txt

Notes

• If /robots.txt returns 404, it is treated as allow-all (with a warning)
• This Actor is designed for validation and QA checks (not a full crawler)

SEO keywords

robots.txt validator, robots.txt checker, validate robots.txt, robots rules tester, sitemap directive checker, crawl-delay validator, allow disallow rules

Quick start

Store page: https://apify.com/scrappy_garden/robots-txt-validator

Paste this into Input and click Run:

{
"startUrls":[
{
"url":"https://example.com/"
}
],
"proxyConfiguration":{
"useApifyProxy":false
}
}

Outputs (what you get)

• Dataset: Dataset items typically include fields like: hostname, robotsTxtUrl, statusCode, hasRobotsTxt, crawlDelaySeconds, sitemapUrls, errors, warnings.
• Key-value store: REPORT, SUMMARY

Tips (trust + predictable results)

• Start with 1–3 URLs to validate behavior, then scale up.
• If a target blocks requests, enable Proxy and/or slow down concurrency in Input.
• Use the SUMMARY / REPORT keys (when present) for automation pipelines and monitoring.

Related actors

• sitemap-generator (https://apify.com/scrappy_garden/sitemap-generator)
• canonical-url-checker (https://apify.com/scrappy_garden/canonical-url-checker)
• broken-link-checker (https://apify.com/scrappy_garden/broken-link-checker)
• security-headers-checker (https://apify.com/scrappy_garden/security-headers-checker)

Search keywords

robots txt validator, robots.txt validator - check rules, sitemaps & crawl directives, website audit, seo, robots.txt