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Free Robots.txt Checker: Validate Your Crawling Rules Instantly

Validate your robots.txt file for SEO issues. Check crawling rules, find blocked pages, and ensure search engines can access your site with this free tool.

Oliver Renfield
February 16, 2026
2 min read

Free Robots.txt Checker: Validate Your Crawling Rules Instantly

A misconfigured robots.txt file can block search engines from crawling your most important pages — killing your rankings overnight. It's one of the most common and most damaging technical SEO mistakes.

Citedy's free Robots.txt Checker validates your crawling rules and ensures search engines can access the pages that matter.

How It Works

  1. Visit citedy.com/tools/robots-checker
  2. Enter your domain
  3. Get instant validation of your robots.txt rules
  4. See which pages are blocked and which are accessible

Key Features

  • Syntax validation — Catch formatting errors and typos in your robots.txt
  • Blocked page detection — See exactly which URLs are blocked for each user agent
  • URL testing — Test specific URLs against your robots.txt rules
  • User agent analysis — Separate rules for Googlebot, Bingbot, and other crawlers
  • Sitemap reference check — Verify sitemap URLs are properly referenced
  • Best practice audit — Flag common mistakes like blocking CSS/JS or entire directories

Use Cases

After site migrations: Verify robots.txt didn't get overwritten with restrictive rules during migration.

Debugging indexing issues: When pages suddenly disappear from Google, robots.txt misconfiguration is a common culprit.

Pre-launch checks: Validate robots.txt before launching a new site to avoid blocking important pages.

Regular audits: Include robots.txt validation in quarterly technical SEO audits.

vs Paid Alternatives

Google Search Console shows robots.txt testing, but it requires site verification. Citedy's tool works on any domain instantly, no setup needed.

FAQ

What happens if my robots.txt blocks important pages?

Search engines won't crawl or index those pages, meaning they won't appear in search results. This can happen silently — you might not notice for weeks.

Should I block AI crawlers in robots.txt?

It depends on your strategy. If you want AI assistants to reference your content (GEO), allow AI crawlers. If you want to restrict AI training on your content, you can block specific AI user agents.

How often should I check robots.txt?

Check after any site migration, CMS update, or when you notice indexing issues. Quarterly checks are recommended.

Validate Your Robots.txt

Check your crawling rules → Free and instant. Get 100 free credits.